Physics on ZME Science

Water trapped in carbon nanotubes starts freezing at the temperature it should be boiling

The weirdest ice.

Bendy artificial muscle is made of pure nylon, still stronger than you

Even nylon is getting ripped and I still won't hit the gym.

Scientists answer longstanding question: why is the surface of ice wet?

Some simple questions have deceivingly complicated answers.

In 1975, a physicist co-authored a paper with his cat. He did it for a very good reason

F.D.C. Willard, also known as Chester, is a cat who co-authored a high-quality physics paper in 1975

It's official: NASA's "impossible" EM drive has been peer-reviewed and published

Complicated physics, impossible results.

THE fusion energy video you should watch

Fusion could usher in a new age of energy but for most of us, fusion energy is still a big question mark.

Laser stopwatch measures atomic events with trillionth of a billionth of a second accuracy

This is one fast 'camera'.

Cooking nuclear waste into glass and ceramic materials could provide safe, efficient containment

Vitrification is the way to go.

Newly proposed particles might solve five of physics' biggest problems, including dark matter

This may be the holy grail of physics we've all been waiting for.

New record gets us closer to fusion energy

We're one step closer to clean, virtually limitless energy.

Squished-booms: looking at the behavior of underwater explosions

Explosions behave quite differently underwater than what you'd see on the surface.

The 2016 Nobel Prize in physics awarded to trio of topological experts

Bagel physics begets a prize.

Scientists develop a ridiculously cheap acoustic tractor beam

It can manipulate objects in complex patterns for only 10 bucks.

How quantum entanglement changed the nature of physical reality forever

Are we living in only one of infinitely possible universes?

Scientists observe 200-mile long lightning bolt - 10 times longer than we thought possible

Scientists have just observed the longest lightning bolt on record by a long shot.

You're holding that mug wrong -- physicist calculates 'claw-hand posture' is most effective to avoid coffee spills

Meet the claw!

The Universe expands equally in all directions -- and this is bad news for Einstein's equations

Zoom out far enough, and the Universe is a pretty homogenous place.

High-power lasers create 'smoke rings' that travel along the beam with the speed of light

Smoke on the light, fire in the sky.

Physicists think they might have found a dark boson -- a dark matter particle

It could be the key to understanding dark matter.

Milky Way's missing matter traced back to an explosion in its core 6 million years ago

It's not the full picture, but its a lot more than we knew before.

The U.S. plans to build the most advanced fusion reactor ever

Endless clean energy is just too good to pass up.

China launches first quantum satellite making its communications unhackable

Teleporting quantum states might the future of communications, and China is leading the way.

Is this the fifth fundamental force of nature? Physics might never be the same

Physics just got a whole lot more interesting.

California's highways will generate electricity from cars driving over them

California will harvest freeways for electricity.

New measurement of a proton leaves us with more questions than answers

We just can't seem to determine exactly how tiny they are.

Why sonar needs to adapt to new sound highways in the Arctic

Climate change is creating super corridors for sound waves beneath the Arctic.

Scientists discover new 'Frankenstein' form of light, with important consequences for quantum computing

An intriguing electron-light interaction was discovered by scientists.

Dissatisfied owner turns his pub into a Faraday Cage to save the English pub experience

Old fashioned socializing, powered by science.

Too big to orbit: Jupiter is so massive it doesn't actually orbit the Sun

They actually take one another for a spin.

Large Underground Xenon experiment fails to detect dark matter

Invisible dark matter continues to elude scientists

Real life invisibility cloaks are closer than we think

A new advancement in the use of nanocomposites could pave the way for future invisibility cloaks.

The smallest, most affordable atomic force microscope could be a game changer

This AFM is small, easy to use, and costs much less than many high-end AFMs.

Strong 'electric wind' can strip entire planets of oceans and atmosphere

This is some scary stuff.

Scientists make everyday objects invisible from multiple angles

Inching along the path towards the perfect invisibility cloak.

The Oscar winning algorithm that makes smoke and explosions seem real

You'll recognize the work instantly if you've seen movies like Avatar, Super 8 or Superman Man of Steel.

Here's why Elon Musk thinks we might be characters in a giant computer simulation

At Recode's Code Conference serial entrepreneur Elon Musk gave his own two cents on why our existence could be in fact a simulation on some advanced civilization's supercomputers.

Physicists add another box to 'Schrödinger's cat', as if one wasn't spooky enough

Now, the cat is both dead and alive and sits in two boxes -- all at the same time. Here goes nothing.

How to slow down light until it stops

In vacuum, light always travels at a constant speed of 299,792,458 metres per second. Nothing can travel faster than this constant c, as denoted by physicists. These two postulates are basic building blocks of modern physics and were first announced more than a hundred years ago by Albert Einstein. Yet, there are ingenious ways to slow light to the point of trapping it in a dead stop. Prepare for some weirdness.

Amazing lighting strikes filmed at 7,000 frames per second

Researchers at the Florida Institute of Technology had an awesome day on the field with their 7,000 frames per second high-speed cameras.

Most powerful X-ray machine blasts water droplets for science

Stanford researchers fired extremely bright flashes of light from the world's most powerful X-ray laser onto droplets of liquid. These vaporized instantly, but not before the whole process was imaged in full detail.

A.I. masters control of delicate Nobel-winning physics experiment in under an hour

Lazy physicists from Australia programmed an artificial intelligence system to maneuver a delicate experiment with little to no oversight. The A.I. had to control an array of lasers that are used to cool atoms near absolute zero temperature, where the slightest hiccup could destroy the fragile state of matter of the atoms. But the machine performed marvelously.

Why there are only three dimensions in this reality

By all account, we can only perceive three spatial dimensions: width, length and height. Everything seems more vibrant and 'real' in 3-D, compared to 2-D, but one can only wonder what things must look in four dimensions. Alas, our brains simply can't fathom a four-dimensional universe, let alone a 99-dimension universe. Moreover, it seems our Universe simply can't host more than three dimensions due to the laws of thermodynamics, physicists say.

Scientists make the smallest thermometer from programmable DNA

This remarkable research could open the doors for biological thermometers at the nanoscale which might tell us a thing or two about how our bodies function at the smallest level.

Water squeezed in a new state: not liquid, nor solid or gas. Just pure quantum weirdness

Physicists have crammed water inside extremely small cracks about ten-billionth of a metre and found the molecules entered a never before seen state. In this brand new state, the water molecules don't adhere to strict laws of classical physics anymore, nor do they behave like a liquid, gas or solid.

Self-healing artificial muscle made at Stanford University

The closest we've come to natural muscles is a novel elastomer developed at Stanford University, Palo Alto that can stretch 45 times its length and return to its original size. It's also self-healing.

Researchers double WiFi broadband while halving chip size

A new circuit was demonstrated at the 2016 IEEE International Solid- State Circuits Conference this past February that can, among other things, double Wi-Fi speed, while halving the size of the chip. The researchers at Columbia Engineering invented a new tech called "full-duplex radio integrated circuits" which uses only one antenna to simultaneously transmit and receive at the same wireless radio frequency.

The smallest heat engine ever is atom-sized

Heat engines, whether they're as big as a five-story building or as small as an atom, operate using the same thermodynamic processes. This was proven by Johannes Roßnagel at the University of Mainz in Germany who made a single calcium-40 atom behave like a Stirling engine. Nothing short of amazing!

Gamers help solve quantum physics problem where A.I. failed

After an A.I. beat the human champion at Go, a game almost infinitely more complex than chess, some might feel like tossing the towel and let our robot overlords take their rightful place. Not so fast! We're still good for something. Pressed to find a solution for a complicated quantum physics problem that neither the researchers themselves nor an algorithm could properly solve, Danish physicists turned to the gaming community. They devised a game which mimicked the task at hand while also keeping it fun, and found some gamers came up with novel "outside the box" solutions which the algorithm couldn't even touch. Points for humanity!

Isaac Newton copied a "Philosopher's Stone" recipe. The manuscript will soon be available

The great physicist who invented Calculus in his 20s and gave the world the universal law of gravity transcribed countless pages from a famous alchemy manuscript which describes how to manufacture a key element for the Philosopher's Stone.

Composite metal foam better at stopping bullets than solid plates

Composite metal foam (CMF) is light, but strong -- it can even stop bullets!

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