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The Universe’s Expansion Rate Is Breaking Physics and JWST’s New Data Makes It Worse

New data confirms a puzzling rift in the universe's expansion rate.

Scientists may have found clues to a mysterious fifth force of nature hidden in an ancient asteroid

An asteroid's orbit may reveal an invisible fifth force that could rewrite the rules of physics.

Scientists Inch Closer to World's First Nuclear Clock — A New Tool to Probe the Mysteries of the Universe

Researchers take a step closer to the world's most precise clock, with implications beyond timekeeping.

Richard Feynman explains the scientific method in 10 minutes

Feynman was not only one of the most accomplished physicists in history. He was an amazing teacher.

Scientists uncover the physics behind paper cuts. Here are the types of paper most likely to cut you

New research reveals why certain paper is more likely to cause cuts.

This small robot is the 'jumpiest' ever created — it can jump over Big Ben

This type of robot could help us better explore the moon or Mars.

Why clouds don't fall: the physics behind the sky's fluffy wonders

They never fall but they pour.

What is dark matter? A deep dive

84.4% of the matter in the universe is something that we don’t really understand yet.

What is entropy, and why is it always increasing?

Room's a mess again? It's physics's fault.

What is Superposition? Schrödinger's Cat Experiment Explained

The tale of physics’ most famous cat is one that is familiar to many, but what is the inside story of the feline so demanding it requires its own Universe, and how does it illustrate the 'weirdness' of the quantum world?

Nobel Physics Prize goes to cosmology and exoplanet pioneers

It's exciting to see exoplanet research being awarded with a Nobel Prize.

Decade-old debate put to rest with new measurement of proton diameter

They're not big.

We're 50 km closer to quantum internet

Quantum World of Warcraft, here I come.

We can now film chemical reactions on an atomic level as they unfold

Nifty.

New study reveals why dandelions are among the best fliers -- they take to the air in a unique way

We have a lot to learn from the humble dandelion.

Mathematicians solve old mystery about spaghetti breaking

Here's a question you never knew you wanted to answer.

Why a spinning hard-boiled egg always faces up

Try it at home.

Scientists design $100 muon detector

It's a unique chance to do some top notch science from the comfort of your own home.

Why wheelie suitcases wobble out of control and what you can do to stop them

Ah, wheeled luggage -- a necessary evil.

World's tiniest race will pit nanocars against each other in Toulouse this April

The stakes have never been so tiny.

NASA wants to create the coolest spot in the universe

It's cool, and it's totally out there!

Czech researchers turn graphene sheets into the first stable non-metallic magnets

Is there anything graphene can't do?

Light-bending material could bridge quantum and classical physics

We're closer than ever to a Theory of Everything.

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

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.

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

It could be the key to understanding dark matter.

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

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

The LHC is back - and it's stronger than ever

After the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) took a 2 year hiatus to up its power, it's finally back, and it's stronger than ever - strong enough to uncover some of physics best kept secrets. Today, June 3, the LhC started delivering physics data for the first time in 27 months.

Richard Feynman's Lectures on Physics released for free online

Feynman was at times called "The Great Explainer" because of his skill at making complex subjects accessible to students, and while still a professor at Caltech he released his now famous Feynman Lectures on Physics. The three-volume collection has since become the most popular physics text book. Now, the whole collection is available for free, online for your personal consideration.

New, great open-access deal for particle physics

Fantastic news for physics lovers: pretty much all particle physics articles will now be open-source, thanks to a deal between a consortium and 12 journals. In the most remarkable attempt to make hard, peer-reviewed science available to readers, the Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics (SCOAP3) is close to securing all particle-physics […]

Physicist avoids traffic ticket by publishing a paper, proving his innocence

Dmitri Krioukov, a physicist at University of California in San Diego, was recently fined by a police officer for allegedly driving through a stop sign. Confident that he did nothing of the sorts, Krioukov sought justice like most of us would, in court that is, however during the hearing he presented a somewhat atypical piece of […]

Antimatter trapped for 15 minutes at CERN

The team operating the Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus (ALPHA) at the CERN laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland reported storing antimatter for approximately 1000 seconds, which might not seem like much of a big deal, but it is about 10.000 times longer than the previous record ! A cloud of antihydrogen This study will hopefully reveal more […]

Book Review: Visions of the Multiverse

I recently came into the possession of a book called ‘Visions of the Multiverse’, which I had the pleasure of reading, finishing it just a few days ago. This is not a paid post in any way, it reflects my opinions on the book, and anything positive or negative regarding it is just my opinion. […]

How physics can help financial traders

In a world where the king words are ‘buy low, sell high’, speed is of upmost importance. Stock trading has become more and more reliant on modern ways of transmitting and processing information, and in this process, fiber optic plays a crucial role. While fiber optic does work at 90 percent the speed of light, […]

Physicists create a supernova in a jar

A supernova is a stellar explosion of cosmic proportions, that often can outshine the entire galaxy it is located in, before fading away in a matter of weeks or months. During this short period however, supernovae emit as much energy as the Sun emits during its entire life span – it’s the same kind of […]

Physicists create previously thought impossible super photons

A team of physicists from the University of Bonn developed a totally new type of source of light, the so called Bose-Einstein condensate; the results will be published in the upcoming edition of Nature. They managed to achieve this astonishing feat by greatly cooling Rubidium atoms and stashing them into each other, up until the […]

Antimatter captured at CERN

For physicists, antimatter is probably the most valuable substance ever; the slightest bit of it could provide extremely valuable information that can help clear out some of the most stressing issues in modern physics. However, the thing is these little gifts are pretty hard to wrap. However, the ALPHA project at CERN achieved this remarkable […]

Storm elves and sprites recorded on video

Storm elves and sprites are electric luminous fleeting phenomena that sometimes naturally occur in the upper atmosphere. A team of Spanish researchers managed to make a high speed recording of the phenomena and publish it in the Journal of Geophysical Research. Practically, sprites are electrical discharges shaped like a carrot or a column that form […]

Herschel reveals the hidden side of star birth

The first touchable scientific results of the Herschel infrared space observatory are spectacular indeed; not only is it showing previously hidden details of star formation, but it also shows thousands of distant galaxies “building” stars with incredible energy and covering the Milky Way in wonderfully coloured star clouds. Not only are the images spectacular by […]

Astronomers upset the theory of planetary formation

The discovery of 9 new planets raises some serious questions on the matter of how planets are formed. Two astronomers from the University of California, Santa Barbara reported the discovery, and of them, two are spinning in the opposite direction the planets in our solar system are spinning. This, along with other recent studies of […]

LHC - we have a collision !

“It’s a great day to be a particle physicist,” said CERN director general Rolf Heuer. “A lot of people have waited a long time for this moment.” The LHC had been going on a promising streak for quite a while now; however, the encountered problems (mostly engineering, but also physics) were huge. Imagine firing arrows […]

NASA Mars Rover gets smarter as it ages

NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is already in its 7th year on Mars, and over the years it provided some quite useful information; researchers from NASA have been constantly working on ways to improve and optimize it by constantly uploading new software. Such is the case with the software they applied this winter, which makes […]

Could life exist in a different Universe than ours ?

Whether intelligent life exists in our universe is a long debated problem. But for some scientists, there’s something even more interesting than that: is there life in another universe? A definite answer is impossible, especially since it’s not even clear if such a universe exists, though researchers have speculated such an existence for more than […]

NASA launches observatory to study sun

It’s NASA’s second launch in just 4 days (after Endeavour), and this time it’s about the most advanced solar observatory ever built. It was first placed on a shuttle station complex and it was orbiting the Atlantic when it was rocketed into space in an unmaned rocket. The Solar Dynamics Observatory (as it was named) […]

Pluto is changing colors

Pluto is so upset that it’s no longer a planet, that it’s turning all red with anger ! No, seriously. There’s been a whole lot of “Pluto-related news” these days including the 2006 chalking off of the planet list, and naming it a “dwarf planet”, and the news just gets better and better. Recently, astronomers […]

Scientists create the first molecular transistor

Researchers from Yale University succeeded in what seemed to be an impossible task: they’ve created a transistor from a single molecule. In case you don’t know, a transistor is a “semiconductor device commonly used to amplify or switch electronic signals” (via wikipedia). The team showed that using a single benzene molecule attached to gold contacts […]

Water and fog found on Titan, Saturn's moon

As I was writing in a previous post, Titan is quite unique, in that aside from our planet it’s the only place in our solar system where significant quantities of liquid are to be found (though most are liquid ethane and methane). That doesn’t seem to make much of a difference considering the chemistry of […]

LHC produces first results

Since the Large Hadron Collider went back in business, all sort of rumors have been circling the scientific circles (and not only). However, until these rumors are proven wrong or right, the first official paper on proton collisions from the Large Hadron Collider has been published in this week’s edition of Springer’s European Physical Journal […]

Dark matter discovered, or at least rumor has it

Well, rumors and science never go well together, especially when it goes to something as important as the work going on at LHC, who just got back in business a short while ago. My first reaction was to believe it was just a rumor. However, after hearing and reading many articles on this I still […]