When a raindrop falls through a thundercloud, it is subject to strong electric fields that pull and tug on the droplet, like a soap bubble in the wind. If the electric field is strong enough, it can cause the droplet to burst ...
General Physics
Jun 17, 2019
2
799
The field of metamaterials involves designing complicated, composite structures, some of which can manipulate electromagnetic waves in ways that are impossible in naturally occurring materials.
General Physics
Mar 21, 2019
4
1425
Electrons flowing across the boundary between two materials are the foundation of many key technologies, from flash memories to batteries and solar cells. Now researchers have directly observed and clocked these tiny cross-border ...
General Physics
Feb 11, 2019
0
722
The discovery of a dark ribbon of weak hydrogen ion emissions that encircles Jupiter has overturned previous thinking about the giant planet's magnetic equator.
Space Exploration
Jul 23, 2018
5
126
Quantum mechanics is the branch of physics governing the sometimes-strange behavior of the tiny particles that make up our universe. Equations describing the quantum world are generally confined to the subatomic realm—the ...
Astronomy
Mar 5, 2018
11
3490
Three mathematicians have a different explanation for the accelerating expansion of the universe that does without theories of "dark energy." Einstein's original equations for General Relativity actually predict cosmic acceleration ...
General Physics
Dec 14, 2017
160
2955
In November of 2014, in a first, unexpected move for the field of particle physics, the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment—one of the main detectors in the world's largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider—released ...
General Physics
Sep 30, 2017
29
1842
(Phys.org)—A pair of researchers, one with the Columbia Astrobiology Center in New York, the other with the University of Glasgow in the U.K. has come up with a mathematical equation that when solved is meant to offer a ...
Gas bubbles in a glass of champagne, thin films rupturing into tiny liquid droplets, blood flowing through a pumping heart and crashing ocean waves—although seemingly unrelated, these phenomena have something in common: ...
General Physics
Jun 10, 2016
1
2819
Are humans unique and alone in the vast universe? This question—summed up in the famous Drake equation—has for a half-century been one of the most intractable and uncertain in science.
Astronomy
Apr 28, 2016
173
5384
