Physics & Math, features and articles | Educational Science

Apr 26, 2023

World's heaviest Schrödinger's cat made in quantum crystal visible to the naked eye

Physicists have created the world's heaviest Schrödinger's cat, bringing the bizarre behavior of the quantum world to larger scales than ever before. The trick, performed by vibrating 100 million billion atoms inside a sand-grain-sized sapphire crystal, created the world's heaviest quantum superposition as the crystal simultaneously oscillated in two different...

Jun 28, 2023

Distortions in space-time could put Einstein's theory of relativity to the ultimate test

Scientists could soon test Einstein's theory of general relativity by measuring the distortion of time. According to new research published June 22 in the journal Nature Astronomy, the newly proposed method turns the edge of space and time into a vast cosmic lab to investigate if general relativity can account...

Aug 5, 2023

'The most magical equation in physics': How Paul Dirac accidentally revealed the strange world of antimatter

British theoretical physicist Paul Dirac was one of the most significant figures in the early days of quantum physics, who along with Erwin Schrödinger won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1933. But it was in 1927 that this quiet, but brilliant mind set to work looking for pretty mathematics,...

Aug 24, 2023

Quantum 'yin-yang' shows two photons being entangled in real-time

Scientists have used a first-of-its-kind technique to visualize two entangled light particles in real time — making them appear as a stunning quantum yin-yang symbol. The new method, called biphoton digital holography, uses an ultra high-precision camera and could be used to massively speed up future quantum measurements. The researchers...

Oct 25, 2023

World's largest gravitational wave observatory squeezes light beyond the 'quantum limit'

Scientists at the world's largest gravitational wave observatory have just squeezed light beyond a key quantum limit. The new technique, called frequency-dependent squeezing, will increase the number of tiny ripples in space-time detectable by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), boosting the number of neutron star and black hole collisions...

May 22, 2018

Nuclear Detectives Hunt Invisible Particles That Escaped the World's Largest Atom Smasher

A few years from now, if a crew of physicists gets its way, a squat building will rise above the border between France and Switzerland. This warehouse-size annex will join a scientific facility so large it crosses national borders. And, if the researchers proposing the construction are correct, it just...

Jun 1, 2018

A Major Physics Experiment Just Detected a Particle That Shouldn't Exist

Scientists have produced the firmest evidence yet of so-called sterile neutrinos, mysterious particles that pass through matter without interacting with it at all. The first hints these elusive particles turned up decades ago. But after years of dedicated searches, scientists have been unable to find any other evidence for them,...

Jun 4, 2018

The Higgs Boson Has a New Friend

The Higgs boson appeared again at the world's largest atom smasher — this time, alongside a top quark and an antitop quark, the heaviest known fundamental particles. And this new discovery could help scientists better understand why fundamental particles have the mass they do. When scientists at the Large Hadron...

Jul 12, 2018

Why a 4-Billion-Year-Old Particle That Hit Antarctica Is Such a Big Deal

A single, high-energy neutrino struck Earth on Sept. 22, 2017. It came from a distant galaxy, wrapped around a supermassive black hole. And, beginning with a blockbuster paper published today (July 12) in the journal Science and signed by hundreds of scientists spread across dozens of laboratories, it's leading giddy...

Jul 30, 2018

Large Hadron Collider Just Spat Electron-ified Atoms to Almost the Speed of Light

Scientists working on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) achieved yet another first Wednesday (July 25), revving full-blown atoms (with electrons oribiting them) up to near the speed of light. The question of whether these were truly the first atoms that humans have accelerated to these speeds is a bit semantic;...

Aug 28, 2018

First-Ever Observation of Higgs Boson Decay Opens New Doors for Particle Physics

If you’ve been a science fan for the last few years, you’re aware of the exciting results to emerge from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which in 2012 found the Higgs boson, the subatomic particle responsible for giving mass to fundamental subatomic particles. Today, physicists have another exciting announcement to...

Sep 10, 2018

Happy Birthday, LHC: Here's to 10 Years of Atom Smashing at the Large Hadron Collider

Ten years ago, the world's largest scientific instrument was turned on and the start of a research dynasty began. On Sept. 10, 2008, a beam of protons was shot for the first time around the entire 16.5-mile-long (27 kilometers) ring of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) — the world's largest...

Sep 18, 2018

This Experiment Will Shoot Ghostly Particles Through Earth, Answer Why We Exist

The study of the subatomic world has revolutionized our understanding of the laws of the universe and given humanity unprecedented insights into deep questions. Historically, these questions have been in the philosophical realm: How did the universe come into existence? Why is the universe the way it is? Why is...

Sep 19, 2018

For Tiny Light Particles, 'Before' and 'After' Mean Nothing

Beneath the surface of the familiar world is a smaller, quantum world that defies our fundamental ideas of time and space. In this mini world, the concepts of before and after dissolve, such that two events can both precede and succeed each other. In other words, event A can occur...

Oct 1, 2018

Atom Smasher Detects Hints of New Unstable Particle

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's largest atom smasher, just discovered at least two previously unknown particles. The 17-mile (27 kilometers) underground ring near Geneva recently discovered two baryons and a hint of another particle, according to a statement from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), which runs...