A detector for the LHCb experiment under construction.Credit: Brice, Maximilian; CERN A once-promising clue to new physics from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest particle accelerator, has melted, dashing one of physicists’ best hopes for a major discovery. The apparent anomaly was an unexpected difference in the behavior of electrons and their more …
Crack index in the Standard Model disappears in LHC data Read More »
In the zoo of subatomic particles, neutrinos are strange beasts. Unlike more familiar particles such as electrons and protons, ghostly neutrinos barely interact with normal matter: they can fly through a planet as if it isn’t even there. This makes them extremely difficult to detect and, for neutrinos from cosmic objects in the sky, even …
Neutrinos from a nearby galaxy reveal the secrets of a black hole Read More »
Time: it is constantly lacking and we never have enough. Some say it’s an illusion, others say it flies like an arrow. Well, this arrow of time is a big headache in physics. Why does time have a particular direction? And can such a direction be reversed? A study, published in Scientific Reports, provides an …
Scientists Have ‘Time-Reversed’ Inside a Quantum Computer, and the Implications Are Huge Read More »
Fractal patterns can be found everywhere, from snowflakes to lightning bolts to the jagged edges of coastlines. Beautiful to behold, their repetitive nature can also inspire mathematical insights into the chaos of the physical landscape. A new example of these mathematical quirks has been discovered in a type of magnetic substance known as spin ice, …
A new type of fractal has been discovered in magnetic ice Read More »
When two particles are entangled, the state of one is linked to the state of the other. Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon in which the quantum states of two or more objects become correlated, meaning that the state of one object can affect the state of others even though the objects are separated by large …
A mysterious shock wave in a gust of solar wind sent a barrage of high-speed material shattering through Earth’s magnetic field, opening a crack in the magnetosphere. The plasma barrage could lead to a geomagnetic storm today (December 19), according to spaceweather.com. The origins of the shock wave are not exactly known, but scientists believe …
A mysterious shock wave from the sun opens a crack in the Earth’s magnetic field Read More »
The low-radioactivity underground laboratory of the Gran Sasso. Credit: Massimiliano De Deo, LNGS-INFN For decades, physicists have been searching for a model of quantum gravity that would unify quantum physics, the laws that govern the infinitely small, and gravity. A major obstacle has been the difficulty of experimentally testing the predictions of the candidate models. …
Italian underground lab searches for quantum gravity signals Read More »
A modification of the theory of general relativity makes it consistent with observable astronomical data without the need for dark energy. Since its completion in 1915, Einstein’s theory of general relativity has been the foundation of our understanding of gravity. This theory has passed many experimental tests and is used to explain not only physics …
The quantum world defies common sense at every turn. Shaped over hundreds of thousands of years by biological evolution, our modern human brain struggles to understand things outside of our familiar naturalistic context. It is easy to understand a predator chasing prey across a grassy plain; understanding most anything that happens at subatomic scales can …
