Physics & Math, features and articles | Educational Science

Sep 30, 2004

Math Idol: Voters Pick Greatest Equations

If the writers of equations had an Academy Awards or a Pullitzer Prize, the finalists might be Maxwell, Euler, Newton, Einstein, and whoever can take credit for '1+1=2.' Robert Crease, a professor of philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, recently polled readers of Physics World...

Sep 30, 2005

Accidental Invention Points to End of Light Bulbs

The main light source of the future will almost surely not be a bulb. It might be a table, a wall, or even a fork. An accidental discovery announced this week has taken LED lighting to a new level, suggesting it could soon offer a cheaper, longer-lasting alternative to the...

Jul 31, 2005

Scientists Mess with the Speed of Light

Researchers in Switzerland have succeeded in breaking the cosmic speed limit by getting light to go faster than, well, light. Or is it all an illusion? Scientists have recently succeeded in doing all sorts of fancy things with light, including slowing it down and even stopping it all together. Now...

Apr 30, 2005

Accelerator Used to Decipher Archimedes' Writings

BALTIMORE (AP) _ A particle accelerator is being used to reveal the long-lost writings of the Greek mathematician Archimedes, work hidden for centuries after a Christian monk wrote over it in the Middle Ages. Highly focused X-rays produced at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center were used last week to begin...

Oct 31, 2006

New Technology Allows Wireless Recharging

In the future, we might recharge electronics the same way many people now surf the web: wirelessly. Marin Soljacic, a researcher from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, often forgets to recharge his cell phone. At times he is awakened by that last breath of electronic power that comes through as...

Aug 31, 2006

Atomic Physics Predicts Successful Store Location

Calculations of how atoms interact could help business owners find the best places to locate their stores. Researcher Pablo Jensen, a computational physicist at the Ecole Normale Supérieure of Lyon, France, studied the locations of businesses in that city. His goal was to determine which varieties of stores seem to...

Jul 31, 2006

Baby Brains are Wired For Math

Next time someone complains about arithmetic being hard, math lovers can defend themselves by saying even a six-month-old can do it. Through monitoring the brains of infants, researchers confirmed that infants as early as six months in age can detect mathematical errors, putting to rest a debate that has been...

Jul 31, 2006

Ties That Bind Atoms Weaker Than Thought

A fundamental force that holds electrons inside atoms and governs how charged particles and light interact is a little weaker than previously thought, scientists reported today. The strength of electromagnetic force, one of the four fundamental forces of nature, is specified through a value known as the fine structure constant.?...

May 31, 2006

Lost Dimension Yields Accidental Discovery

Using strong magnets and a pigment developed by ancient Chinese warriors, scientists turned a three-dimensional system into one with just two dimensions. The transformation's discovery was accidental, but it provides physical evidence for several theories and might help scientists build faster computers. Our three-dimensional world gives us three options for...

Feb 28, 2006

Record Set for Hottest Temperature on Earth: 3.6 Billion Degrees in Lab

Scientists have produced superheated gas exceeding temperatures of 2 billion degrees Kelvin, or 3.6 billion degrees Fahrenheit. This is hotter than the interior of our Sun, which is about 15 million degrees Kelvin, and also hotter than any previous temperature ever achieved on Earth, they say. They don't know how...

Feb 28, 2006

Feds Lose a Few Neutrinos, Gain Some Information

Somewhere between Illinois and Minnesota, the federal government lost some neutrinos. No matter. These invisible elementary particles are ubiquitous in the universe. Neutrinos are incredibly elusive. They rarely interact with matter. They can pass right through you with ease and even through the entire Earth. This makes studying neutrinos very...

Oct 31, 2007

Small World: Quantum Identity Crisis Observed

A quantum enigma has been put to the test once again, but this time physicists have made the experiment smaller than it has ever been. The classic double-slit experiment tests the behavior of light, electrons, atoms and some molecules as both particle-like and wave-like, a mysterious duality that has intrigued...

Sep 30, 2007

MIT Researchers Improve 'Tractor Beam'

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — Taking up the sci-fi staple of tractor beams,'' scientists have developed a way to use light to grab and move minuscule particles on a microchip. The research could lead to fine-grained biological sensors and other precisely built nanoscale devices. The work by Massachusetts Institute of Technology...

Dec 31, 2006

Nobel Prize Winners Live Longer

Winners live longer, at least when it comes to the Nobel Prize, new research shows. An analysis of 524 nominees for the Nobels in physics and in chemistry between 1901 and 1950 showed that the group’s 135 winners lived about two years longer than the also-rans. The finding points to...

Nov 30, 2008

Is Einstein the Last Great Genius?

Major breakthroughs in science have historically been the province of individuals, not institutes. Galileo and Copernicus, Edison and Einstein, toiling away in lonely labs or pondering the cosmos in private studies. But in recent decades — especially since the Soviet success in launching the Sputnik satellite in 1957 — the...