Physics & Math, features and articles | Educational Science

Dec 9, 2019

Mysterious 'Particle X17' Could Carry a Newfound Fifth Force of Nature, But Most Experts Are Skeptical

Our universe is governed by four fundamental forces. At least that's what physicists have long thought. Now, however, new research suggests that there's a fifth force, a discovery that could upend much of modern physics. On Oct. 23, researchers at the Institute of Nuclear Research in Hungary published a new...

Feb 4, 2020

Oddball sexaquark particles could be immortal, if they exist at all

After decades of poking around in the math behind the glue holding the innards of all matter together, physicists have found a strange hypothetical particle, one that has never appeared in any experiment. Called a sexaquark, the oddball is made up of a funky arrangement of six quarks of various...

May 23, 2020

Strange ice formations may have tricked physicists into seeing mysterious particles that weren't there

What if one of the strangest, most unsettling findings in particle physics turned out to be an illusion? Since March 2016, two mysterious signals from Antarctica have baffled researchers. Twice now, a high-energy particle has seemed to burst straight up out of the ice, tripping detectors on a balloon-borne experiment...

Jun 8, 2020

Why a physicist wants to build a particle collider on the moon

As we probe deeper into the innermost workings of the universe, our particle physics experiments have become ever more complex. In order to reveal the secrets of the tiniest subatomic particles, physicists must make colliders and detectors as cold as possible, remove as much air as possible, and keep them...

Jun 12, 2020

Rare quadruplet 'top quarks' created at world's largest atom smasher

The world's largest atom smasher has given birth to a set of four ultraheavy particles — called top quarks. The formation of these chubby-but-tiny quadruplets, at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland, has long been predicted by the Standard Model, the prevailing physics theory that governs subatomic interactions. But...

Aug 6, 2020

Heavy atom spills its guts in decade-long experiment

Wielding proton beams and lasers, physicists have for the first time unlocked one of the key secrets of the rarest naturally occurring element on Earth: astatine. Astatine is a halogen, meaning it shares chemical properties with fluorine, chlorine, bromine and iodine (all elements that typically bind with metals to form...

Aug 27, 2020

Half the atoms in the planet could be digital data by 2245

Information might seem immaterial. But within a few short centuries, the total amount of digital bits produced annually by humanity could exceed the number of atoms on our planet and, even more unexpectedly, account for half of its mass. Those are the conclusions of a mind-bending new study looking at...

Sep 21, 2020

First experimental evidence of a new type of dark boson possibly found

Two experiments hunting for a whisper of a particle that prevents whole galaxies from flying apart recently published some contradictory results. One came up empty handed, while the other gives us every reason to keep on searching. Dark bosons are dark matter candidates based on force-carrying particles that don't really...

Oct 19, 2020

Researchers capture elusive particle trios at room temperature

Researchers have found a way to trap and study elusive particle trios called trions at room temperature. Previously, trions could be studied only in super-cooled conditions. These trios consist of either two electrons and an electron hole (a space in the electronic structure that an electron could fill, but where...

Oct 20, 2020

Higgs boson possibly caught in act of never-before-seen transformation

Scientists may have observed the Higgs boson doing a new trick: creating pairs of muons. When the Higgs boson was discovered at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in 2012, it was the final piece of Standard Model of particle physics puzzle, a particle that had been— long theorized to exist...

Jan 19, 2021

Mystery particle may explain extreme X-rays shooting from the 'Magnificent 7' stars

More than 400 light-years from Earth, there is a cluster of young neutron stars that are too hot for their age. These stars, known as the Magnificent Seven, emit a stream of ultra-high-energy X-rays that scientists haven't been able to explain. Now, scientists have proposed a possible culprit: axions, theoretical...

Jan 26, 2021

Oddball 'neutral electron' possibly discovered in new state of matter

A previously unknown quantum particle — equivalent to a neutral electron — may have been found in a new state of matter. The chargeless oddball wouldn't be one of the fundamental building blocks of matter, however. Rather, it would be a quasiparticle that emerges from the collective behavior of a...

Feb 8, 2021

Superpowerful 'oscillon' particles could have dominated the infant universe, then vanished

A weird, super-powerful particle that's not truly a particle could have dominated the universe when it was just a second old, releasing a flood of ripples that permeated all of space-time. Called oscillons, they would have been so energetic their ripples could have unleashed so-called gravitational waves — those vibrations...

Feb 11, 2021

Particles zipping around Earth at near light-speed finally explained

In the swirl of a perfect solar storm, electrons can get trapped near Earth, where they can accelerate to nearly the speed of light. These electrons get their zip from surfing on waves of super-heated, charged gas called plasma that gets launched from the sun during solar storms. They accelerate...

Feb 16, 2021

Scientists find first evidence of rare Higgs boson decay

Scientists have found the first evidence for a rare type of Higgs boson decay. (Image credit: CERN)Scientists have spotted the first evidence of a rare Higgs boson decay, expanding our understanding of the strange quantum universe. In 2012, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to a breakthrough finding: the...