Physics & Math, features and articles | Educational Science

Apr 12, 2022

How It Works issue 163: Your nervous system explained

Explore you nervous system in issue 163 of How It Works magazine, the electrically charged network composed of billions of cells that co-ordinates your thoughts, feelings, and actions from head to toe. Human beings are wonderfully complex. Relative to the numerous single-celled organisms on our planet, humans are gargantuan super...

Aug 19, 2022

Weird quantum experiment shows protons have more 'charm' than we thought

Protons may have more charm than we thought, new research suggests. A proton is one of the subatomic particles that make up the nucleus of an atom. As small as protons are, they are composed of even tinier elementary particles known as quarks, which come in a variety of flavors,...

Sep 20, 2022

The Quantum World May Have a Favorite Flavor, Tantalizing Results Suggest

The world of the teensy-tiny, the quantum realm, could have a favorite flavor. We're not talking about itty-bitty ice cream cones, of course. The world of particles is split into three camps, called flavors (don't ask why). For example, the electrons represent one flavor, and there are two other particles...

Dec 7, 2022

'Quantum time flip' makes light move simultaneously forward and backward in time

For the first time, physicists have made light appear to move simultaneously forward and backward in time. The new technique could help scientists improve quantum computing and understand quantum gravity. By splitting a photon, or packet of light, using a special optical crystal, two independent teams of physicists have achieved...

Dec 27, 2022

Is all matter made up of both particles and waves?

Wave-particle duality is a cornerstone of quantum mechanics, which is our modern theory of how subatomic particles behave. The duality states that all particles (in fact, all objects) have a wave-like property associated with them. While most standard interpretations of quantum mechanics treat this wave-like property as a neat mathematical...

Dec 29, 2022

Does consciousness explain quantum mechanics?

One of the most perplexing aspects of quantum mechanics is that tiny subatomic particles don't seem to choose a state until an outside observer measures it. The act of measurement converts all the vague possibilities of what could happen into a definite, concrete outcome. While the mathematics of quantum mechanics...

Jan 2, 2023

Do quantum universes really exist?

It's the stuff of science fiction — parallel worlds that fan out in time and space. But do such parallel worlds exist? It turns out that at least some physics theories do allow for the existence of parallel universes — at least on the quantum level. In several interpretations of...

Jan 4, 2023

Does reality exist when we're not looking?

The standard interpretation of quantum mechanics places a lot of emphasis on the act of measurement. Before measurement, quantum systems exist in many states at once. After measurement, the system collapses into a specific value, so it's natural to ask what's really going on when measurements don't take place. There...

Mar 22, 2023

There may have been a second Big Bang, new research suggests

The Big Bang may have been accompanied by a shadow, Dark Big Bang that flooded our cosmos with mysterious dark matter, cosmologists have proposed in a new study. And we may be able to see the evidence for that event by studying ripples in the fabric of space-time. After the...

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...