Tag

Physics

All articles tagged with #physics

science2 days ago•3 min saved

Cuprate Superconductors Revealed as Patchwork of Structures, Not Uniform Crystals

Researchers have overturned a 40-year assumption that cuprate superconductors possess a uniform internal crystal structure. Using 3D X-ray diffraction, scientists found that these materials are actually composed of a patchwork of different atomic arrangements separated by wide boundaries. This discovery suggests that previous theoretical models were oversimplified and may help explain why certain superconductors perform better than others.

via ScienceAlert|

#cuprates #materials-science #physics

science3 days ago•2 min saved

Francis Halzen Wins 2026 Physics Nobel for IceCube Neutrino Observatory

Belgian-born physicist Francis Halzen has been awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics for his foundational role in developing the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole. The award recognizes his vision for using a cubic kilometer of Antarctic ice to detect high-energy neutrinos, particles that act as messengers from distant cosmic events. Halzen, now 82 and affiliated with the University of Wisconsin–Madison, first proposed the concept in 1988. The prize, worth 12 million Swedish kronor, highlights how IceCube has enabled a new form of astronomy by capturing signals from violent processes in the universe that traditional telescopes cannot observe.

via BBC|

#francis-halzen #icecube #neutrinos

science7 days ago•10 min saved

Brine Shrimp Reveal Geometry Can Reverse Turbulent Energy Flow

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have challenged a long-standing assumption in fluid dynamics by demonstrating that energy flow in two-dimensional turbulent systems can be reversed. By observing brine shrimp and using artificial rods in controlled water tanks, the team found that the orientation of an obstacle relative to the flow’s stretching direction dictates whether energy cascades from small to large scales or vice versa. This discovery suggests that simple geometric interventions can manipulate energy transfer in turbulent fluids, with potential applications in pollution control and drug design.

via Quanta Magazine|

#active-matter #fluid-dynamics #physics

physics11 days ago•20 min saved

Australian Physicist Claims Gravity Alters Light Speed, Challenging Einstein's Core Principle

Enbang Li, a physicist at the University of Wollongong in Australia, has proposed that the speed of light is not constant but is instead influenced by local gravity. Using a device built within an elevator shaft on the university campus, Li claims to have detected changes in light speed as it traverses Earth's surface. These findings suggest that gravity can speed up light, potentially contradicting the foundational assumption of special relativity that light travels at a constant rate in a vacuum. If validated, this discovery could impact Earth science applications, including climate monitoring and mineral resource exploration, by providing new methods to measure local gravitational variations.

via zmescience.com|

#enbang-li #general-relativity #gravitational-variation

science11 days ago•0 min saved

Newton’s 1679 Tower Puzzle: Why Falling Objects Drift East

The Guardian published the solution to a 1679 puzzle posed by Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, asking where an object dropped from a tower lands relative to the tower's base. The counter-intuitive answer is that the object lands slightly to the east. This occurs because the falling object conserves angular momentum; as its distance to Earth's center decreases, its rotational velocity increases, causing it to outpace the Earth's surface rotation. The effect is measurable but small, estimated at approximately 11 centimeters for a drop from the Eiffel Tower if it were located on the equator.

via The Guardian|

#angular-momentum #earth-rotation #isaac-newton

science11 days ago•4 min saved

New Study Debunks 'Photomolecular' Water Evaporation Claims

A new study in PNAS challenges the 'photomolecular effect' theory, which claims visible light can evaporate water without heating it. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Germany tested this using high-intensity light and found no change in evaporation rates or molecular structure at the water-air interface, suggesting previous results were likely due to experimental artifacts.

via ScienceAlert|

#climate-research #evaporation #optics

science16 days ago•8 min saved

New Study Suggests Primordial Black Holes May Be Five-Dimensional Objects

A new study led by physicist Luis Anchordoqui suggests that if a compact 'dark dimension' exists, primordial black holes (PBHs) must be five-dimensional rather than four-dimensional. This geometry affects their evaporation rates, potentially allowing some to survive for 13.8 billion years. The findings, to be published in Physical Review D on September 28, propose that such objects could explain high-energy neutrino detections by the KM3NeT observatory, though both PBHs and the dark dimension remain hypothetical.

via ScienceAlert|

#dark-dimension #hawking-radiation #km3net

science16 days ago•61 min saved

New Ice Phase Discovered: Extreme Pressure Creates a Metastable Crystal

Scientists have identified a new, metastable form of ice, designated ice XXI, which forms under extreme pressure at room temperature. This discovery reveals complex freezing pathways that bypass traditional routes, offering new insights into water behavior in high-pressure environments.

via Yahoo|

#high-pressure #ice #materials-science

science16 days ago•131 min saved

Physics: The Alcubierre Drive Remains a Theoretical Concept

A new review from Space.com examines the theoretical feasibility of warp drives, highlighting the 1994 Alcubierre metric as the primary scientific basis for faster-than-light travel. While the concept allows spacetime to contract and expand around a vessel, practical implementation remains unproven due to unresolved issues regarding energy requirements and field stability.

via Space|

#alcubierre #physics #science

physics23 days ago•7 min saved

Quantum Entanglement Endures Higgs Decays at the LHC

Physicists from CERN's ATLAS collaboration have observed strong evidence that quantum entanglement survives the LHC's extreme energies. By studying Higgs boson decays into pairs of Z bosons (which quickly decay into electrons or muons) at 13 TeV, they infer the Z bosons' spins and confirm entanglement in high-energy collider events. This marks one of the highest-energy confirmations of entanglement and extends foundational quantum mechanics tests into violent, laboratory-scale particle collisions; the results are published in Physical Review Letters.

via Sci.News|

#atlas #higgs-boson #lhc

science25 days ago•3 min saved

Physicists Split on Universe’s Biggest Questions, Survey Finds

The largest global survey of physicists reveals little consensus on core questions—from dark matter and black holes to unifying gravity with quantum mechanics and the standard ΛCDM model— with only two items reaching majority support: the Big Bang’s interpretation and cosmic inflation. Views on dark matter, gravity, and cosmology are highly divided, and DESI’s hint that dark energy may vary challenges the standard model. The authors frame this disagreement as opportunity for new data and theory, and an online dashboard lets readers explore the results.

via Science Daily|

#cosmology #dark-matter #physics

science27 days ago•11 min saved

AI's Einstein Test: Can Vintage Models Rediscover Relativity?

Nature examines efforts to train historical-data language models to rediscover relativity, finding that current AI generally struggles to make genuine abductive leaps or paradigm shifts. While some experiments show brief hints of intuition, most results rely on data correlations and fail to produce true breakthroughs, prompting researchers to rethink model architectures and incorporate world-model reasoning, with several vintage-data projects showing limited but intriguing sparks rather than Einstein-level discoveries.

via Nature|

#artificial-intelligence #history-of-science #machine-learning

science1 month ago•12 min saved

Enduring Physics in an AI-Driven Era

Physicist Sarah Demers of Yale discusses how AI can accelerate experimental work (e.g., Mu2e at Fermilab) and data analysis in particle physics, while raising concerns about attribution and intellectual-property in AI tools. She’s helping draft an American Physical Society policy on AI use, emphasizes preserving the core practices of physics, and notes she personally avoids using language models for writing emails; the piece also highlights the Genesis Mission funding that supports AI-enabled scientific workflows and contemplates how AI may reshape training and collaboration in the field.

via Quanta Magazine|

#ai-policy #artificial-intelligence #intellectual-property

science1 month ago•14 min saved

Tiny Underground Signal Could Point to Dark Matter

Physicists analyzing data from the LZ Dark Matter Experiment at the Sanford Underground Research Facility report a single, tiny event that nudges one particle into another, producing a signal that could be the long-sought interaction with dark matter. While intriguing, researchers caution that it could also be a mundane background, and a larger data set is needed to confirm any discovery.

via The New York Times|

#dark-matter #lz-experiment #physics

space1 month ago•14 min saved

Eight Minutes of Light, Thirteen Years of Imagined Sound: A Sun-Vanish Thought Experiment

If the Sun vanished instantly, Earth would still receive sunlight for about 8 minutes 19 seconds because those photons were already en route. A hypothetical sound wave moving through 20°C air would take about 13.82 years to cross the 1 AU gap, illustrating the enormous speed gap between light and sound and that space cannot carry ordinary sound. In reality, sound cannot travel through interplanetary space, gravity changes would propagate at the speed of light, and the term “roar” is a metaphor for the comparison, not a literal measurement; the piece clarifies the thought experiment’s physics and its limits.

via Space Daily|

#astronomy #physics #science