Physics

  1. Computing

    Building ‘The Matrix’

    Simulating new materials could help in building them — but only quantum simulators could fully model reality. A team reports a first step in realizing quantum simulation.

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  2. Chemistry

    Oil magnets

    Featured blog: Nanomagnets and wires point to a potentially better mousetrap — or crude trap — for dealing with oil spills.

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  3. Physics

    Watching the northern lights form

    Scientists may have solved the mystery of what triggers the events that spark the northern and southern lights.

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  4. Chemistry

    Quantum physics makes water different

    The length of bonds connecting water molecules could demonstrate quantum effects and help explain some of water’s weirdness.

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  5. Physics

    Decoding the Quantum Mystery

    An essay by Tom Siegfried, SN's Editor in Chief, explores how signals from space to Earth could establish the reality of Einstein's worst fear.

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  6. Health & Medicine

    Insightful Light

    Raman spectroscopy may offer doctors, dentists and forensic scientists a better tool for molecular detection.

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  7. Physics

    Seeing the smallest atom

    Electron microscopes can now image single atoms of hydrogen.

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  8. Materials Science

    Solar panels to dye for

    Scientists show that cheap chemical dyes may one day help with the efficient capture of the sun's energy

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  9. Physics

    Large Hadron Collider

    When the Large Hadron Collider powers up this fall, protons moving at almost the speed of light will collide with energies high enough, physicists hope, to solve matter’s biggest mysteries.

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  10. Physics

    Layers in a Stradivarius

    Slight differences in the wood from which violins are made might be what distinguishes a mellow-toned Stradivarius from an ordinary instrument.

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  11. Physics

    Left in the cold

    An optical trap lets atoms in but not out, and it can be used to study matter at ultracold temperatures.

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  12. Physics

    Galaxy Zoo’s blue mystery (part I)

    A Dutch science teacher found a novel celestial object that had eluded the notice of astronomers.

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