Physics
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Quantum Physics
Quantum computers take a step forward with a 50-qubit prototype
Race to build ever-more-powerful processors edges the technology closer to being able to best traditional machines.
- Archaeology
Mystery void is discovered in the Great Pyramid of Giza
High-energy particle imaging helps scientists peek inside one of the world’s oldest, largest monuments.
- Physics
Photons are caught behaving like superconducting electrons
Light particles, or photons, swap energy like electrons in a superconductor.
- Materials Science
Nobel Prize–winning technique illuminates the fibers that set off battery fires
Scientists get a closer look at the filaments that ruin lithium-ion batteries from the inside out.
- Tech
This is the lightest robot that can fly, swim and take off from water
Lightweight, insect-inspired robot can swim, fly and leap from the surface of water.
- Quantum Physics
Light’s weird dual nature weathers trip to space and back
“Delayed-choice” experiment performed in space reaffirms the idea that light can behave like a wave or a particle.
- Life
A new material may one day keep mussels off piers and boat hulls
Mussels don’t stick to a new lubricant-infused silicone material.
- Science & Society
Conspiring with engineers helps make science great
Acting Editor in Chief Elizabeth Quill says the passion to acquire knowledge and apply it lives in both engineers and scientists.
- Particle Physics
Readers question photons colliding, black sea snakes and more
Readers had questions about brain flexibility, black sea snakes and photon collisions.
- Physics
New physics books don’t censor the math behind reality
Special Relativity and Classical Theory and The Physical World offer deep dives into physical reality’s mathematical foundations.
- Tech
Watch this cuttlefish-inspired ‘skin’ morph into a 3-D shape
New silicone material mimics cephalopod shape-shifting for quick camouflage.
- Tech
New atomic clock is most precise yet
This next-gen atomic clock ticks at a steady beat, but time will tell just how well it tells time.
