All Stories by Peter Weiss
- Tech
Cramming bits into pits
By skewing the alignment of pits on an optical disk's surface, disk makers might store much more than one bit per pit.
- Physics
To freeze this liquid, add heat
A wrong-headed mixture of liquid starch, water, and a solvent freezes when heated.
- Physics
Hurrying a nuclear identity switch
Radioactive beryllium-7 atoms locked inside molecular cages decay extraordinarily quickly.
- Physics
Wake Up, Little Surfers: Riding waves toward tabletop accelerators
Prospects that today's giant particle accelerators could shrink to the size of rooms look better than ever, now that new experiments have produced electron pulses of uniform energy from laser-powered accelerators that act over millimeter distances.
- Physics
Marrying matter and light
Physicists have created circuit components that, in a manner analogous to atoms, meld with light, opening new ways to study fundamental light-matter interactions.
- Physics
Spooky Timing: Quantum-linked photons coordinate clock ticks
Physicists have demonstrated a new technique for bringing distant clocks into closer synchronization by means of entangled photons whose quantum properties are mysteriously correlated.
- Tech
Bartending lessons for microassembly
Engineers have demonstrated the feasibility of quickly assembling identical microcircuit components by agitating subunits in a liquid.
- Physics
Orbiting relativity test gets slow start
Unexpected but necessary adjustments to a satelliteborne test of relativity theory have slashed the time available to collect data.
- Tech
Transmuting a powerful poison
A new chemical process for fuel cells powered by hydrocarbons eliminates carbon monoxide that would clog fuel-cell electrodes while also extracting energy from the troublesome gas.
- Physics
Extreme Impersonations
By creating tiny clouds of remarkable new kinds of ultracold gases, physicists are, in essence, bringing to their lab benches chunks of some of the most extraordinary and hard-to-study matter in the universe.
- Materials Science
Falling into Place: Atom mist yields nanobricks and mortar
Researchers have induced tiny particles of nickel to spontaneously assemble into exceptionally uniform, three-dimensional arrays of macroscopic size.
- Tech
Tiny Timepiece: Atomic clock could fit almost anywhere
Physicists have shrunk the high-tech heart of an atomic clock to the size of a rice grain.
