Physicists may have finally spotted elusive clusters of four neutrons
Physicists have found the strongest sign yet of a fabled four of a kind. For six decades, researchers have hunted for clusters of four neutrons…
Physicists have found the strongest sign yet of a fabled four of a kind. For six decades, researchers have hunted for clusters of four neutrons…
It sounds like the setup for a joke: If radio waves give you radar and sound gives you sonar, what do gravitational waves get you?…
It may seem like fun and games, but understanding how dominoes topple isn’t child’s play. “It’s a problem that is so natural; everybody plays with…
Sonic booms can be particularly annoying in cities, where tall buildings and narrow streets boost noise levels and cause the noise to linger, new research…
Smoke rings are being seen in a new light. Doughnut-shaped structures called vortex rings are sometimes seen swirling through fluids. Smokers can form them with…
Machine learning can get a boost from quantum physics. On certain types of machine learning tasks, quantum computers have an exponential advantage over standard computation,…
Nuclear submarines might provide rogue nations with a path to nuclear weapons. But neutrinos could help reveal attempts to go from boats to bombs. Neutrinos,…
A speck of gold dancing to a pipe organ’s tune has helped solve a long-standing mystery: why certain wind instruments violate a mathematical formula that…
Two mysterious galaxies, devoid of dark matter, could have a smashing origin story. About 8 billion years ago, researchers propose, two dwarf galaxies slammed into…
When a star gets too close to a black hole, sparks fly. And, potentially, so do subatomic particles called neutrinos. A dramatic light show results…
There’s a new addition to astronomers’ portrait gallery of black holes. Astronomers announced May 12 that they have finally assembled an image of the supermassive…
This black hole really knows how to kick back. Scientists recently observed two black holes that united into one, and in the process got a…
After a hiatus of more than three years, the Large Hadron Collider is back. Scientists shut down the particle accelerator in 2018 to allow for…
There’s something amiss with a mass. A new measurement of the mass of an elementary particle, the W boson, has defied expectations. The result hints…
Some asteroids can barely hold it together. Rather than solid lumps of rock, ‘rubble pile’ asteroids are loose collections of material, which can split apart…
The search for a hypothetical subatomic particle that could signal new physics just narrowed a bit — thanks to the light swirling around a gargantuan…
Someday our clothing may eavesdrop on the soundtrack of our lives, capturing the noises around and inside us. A new fiber acts as a microphone…
Staring at raindrops on a car windshield is more than just a way to get in touch with your emo side. You might also learn…
Lizards are famous for losing their tails, but perhaps the bigger question should be: How do their tails stay on? The answer may lie in…
The historic Apollo moon missions are often associated with high-visibility test flights, dazzling launches and spectacular feats of engineering. But intricate, challenging handiwork — comparable…
A new study casts a haze over a hint of the universe’s first glimmers of starlight. In 2018, researchers claimed that a subtle signature in…
The best way to find buried treasure may be with a quantum gravity sensor. In these devices, free-falling atoms reveal subtle variations in Earth’s gravitational…
Russia’s war with Ukraine is heightening nuclear fears on two fronts. Attacks on nuclear facilities have raised concerns about accidents, and threats from Russian President…
If you hate having your bubble burst, you’ll love these “everlasting” bubbles. While soap bubbles are known for their fragile constitutions, the new bubbles can…
Even though it’s only even odds that 2022 will turn out to be less of a disaster than 2021 (or 2020), at least 2022 is…
Some quantum particles gotta get right back to where they started from. Physicists have confirmed a theoretically predicted phenomenon called the quantum boomerang effect. An…
Trapped within a bead of water, thousands of tiny worms wiggle in hypnotic synchrony as they stream around the globule’s rim. And at the center…
Scientists are like prospectors, excavating the natural world seeking gems of knowledge about physical reality. And in the century just past, scientists have dug deep…
It’s confirmed: Protons and antiprotons are well-matched. The two types of subatomic particles mirror each other in the ratios of their electric charge to mass,…
The only known duo of pulsars has just revealed a one-of-a-kind heap of cosmic insights. For over 16 years, scientists have been observing the pair…
An elusive form of matter called a quantum spin liquid isn’t a liquid, and it doesn’t spin — but it sure is quantum. Predicted nearly…
A cloud of ultracold atoms is like a motel with a neon “no vacancy” sign. If a guest at the motel wants to switch rooms,…
It all happens in a snap. New high-speed video exposes the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it physics behind snapping your fingers. The footage reveals the extreme speed at which…
Inscribed on an Italian family’s 15th century coat of arms and decorating an ancient Japanese shrine, the Borromean rings are symbolically potent. Remove one ring…
From the maw of the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy M87, two enormous jets stream thousands of light-years into space. Scientists…
The cosmic origins of elements heavier than iron are mysterious. One elemental birthplace came to light in 2017 when two neutron-rich dead stars collided and…
A mad scramble to observe the moments after a star’s death is helping scientists understand how the star lived out its last year. Astronomers reported…
For decades, physicists have suspected an interloper. A reclusive, hypothetical subatomic particle might be creeping into studies of neutrinos, nearly massless particles with no electric…
There’s physics to having your ducklings in a row. By paddling in an orderly line behind their mother, baby ducks can take a ride on…
A millimeter might not seem like much. But even a distance that small can alter the flow of time. According to Einstein’s theory of gravity,…
Mistakes happen — especially in quantum computers. The fragile quantum bits, or qubits, that make up the machines are notoriously error-prone, but now scientists have…
You’ve heard of disappearing ink. Now get ready for suddenly appearing ink. Using a clear liquid, researchers can print a full rainbow of colors on…
Like helicoptering maple seeds, tiny new fliers whirl gracefully as they glide. The miniature aircraft, which can be made as small as a grain of…
A crucial number that rules the universe goes big in a strange quantum material. The fine-structure constant is about 10 times its normal value in…
Like soft serve ice cream, beams of atoms and molecules now come with a swirl. Scientists already knew how to dish up spiraling beams of…
Protons can surf some truly gnarly waves. A new experiment suggests that the subatomic particles can be accelerated by a process akin to surfers catching…
Flashes of CreationPaul HalpernBasic Books, $30 The Big Bang wasn’t always a sure bet. For several decades in the 20th century, researchers wrestled with interpreting…
The W particle may have been found — Science News, August 21, 1971 Physicists distinguish four different kinds of force by which objects in the…
With a powerful laser zap, scientists have blasted toward a milestone for nuclear fusion. A fusion experiment at the world’s biggest laser facility released 1.3…
At every moment, subatomic particles stream in unfathomable numbers through your body. Each second, about 100 billion neutrinos from the sun pass through your thumbnail,…
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