News tagged with quantum physics theory

Atomic clock comparison via data highways

(Phys.org) -- Optical atomic clocks measure time with unprecedented accuracy. However, it is the ability to compare clocks with one another that makes them applicable for high-precision tests in fundamental ...

Physics / General Physics

created Apr 27, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Does the quantum wave function represent reality?

(Phys.org) -- At the heart of quantum mechanics lies the wave function, a probability function used by physicists to understand the nanoscale world. Using the wave function, physicists can calculate a system's ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Apr 25, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (38) | comments 136 | with audio podcast feature

Raising the prospects for quantum levitation

More than half-a-century ago, the Dutch theoretical physicist Hendrik Casimir calculated that two mirrors placed facing each other in a vacuum would attract. The mysterious force arises from the energy of virtual particles ...

Physics / General Physics

created Apr 18, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (11) | comments 1

How quantum physics could make 'The Matrix' more efficient

Researchers have discovered a new way in which computers based on quantum physics could beat the performance of classical computers. The work, by researchers based in Singapore and the UK, implies that a Matrix-like ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Mar 29, 2012 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (9) | comments 2

Quantum copies do new tricks

One of the strange features of quantum information is that, unlike almost every other type of information, it cannot be perfectly copied. For example, it is impossible to take a single photon and make a number of photons ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Mar 22, 2012 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (13) | comments 22 | with audio podcast

Looking at quantum gravity in a mirror

Einstein's theory of gravity and quantum physics are expected to merge at the Planck-scale of extremely high energies and on very short distances. At this scale, new phenomena could arise. However, the Planck-scale ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Mar 18, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (27) | comments 9 | with audio podcast

Why we've got the cosmological constant all wrong

(PhysOrg.com) -- Some scientists call the cosmological constant the "worst prediction of physics." And when today’s theories give an estimated value that is about 120 orders of magnitude larger than the ...

Physics / General Physics

created Mar 05, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (41) | comments 152 | with audio podcast feature

In the early universe, rapid expansion or something very weird

(PhysOrg.com) -- The widely-accepted theory of cosmic inflation states that our universe expanded rapidly in the moments after its birth, resulting in the immense expanse we see today.

Physics / General Physics

created Feb 27, 2012 | popularity 3.6 / 5 (14) | comments 141 | with audio podcast

Vaccines for HIV: A new design strategy

HIV has eluded vaccine-makers for thirty years, in part due to the virus' extreme ability to mutate. Physical scientists and clinical virologists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Ragon Institute ...

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Feb 23, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

The perfect liquid -- now even more perfect

Ultra hot quark-gluon-plasma, generated by heavy-ion collisions in particle accelerators, is supposed to be the "most perfect fluid" in the world. Previous theories imposed a limit on how "liquid" fluids can ...

Physics / Plasma Physics

created Jan 17, 2012 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (10) | comments 9 | with audio podcast

Physicists propose test for loop quantum gravity

(PhysOrg.com) -- As a quantum theory of gravity, loop quantum gravity could potentially solve one of the biggest problems in physics: reconciling general relativity and quantum mechanics. But like all tentative ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Jan 03, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (34) | comments 106 | with audio podcast feature

U of Toronto experiment named top breakthrough of 2011 by Physics World

Aephraim Steinberg and colleagues at the Centre for Quantum Information and Quantum Control at the University of Toronto had the top physics breakthrough of the year according to Physics World magazine.

Physics / General Physics

created Dec 16, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 19

String theory researchers simulate big-bang on supercomputer

(PhysOrg.com) -- A trio of Japanese physicists have applied a reformulation of string theory, called IIB, whereby matrices are used to describe the properties of the physical universe, on a supercomputer, to effectively sho ...

Physics / General Physics

created Dec 14, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (24) | comments 75 | with audio podcast weblog

A new 'lens' for looking at quantum behavior

(PhysOrg.com) -- In a paper published in Physical Review Letters, researchers Daniel Terno (Macquarie University, Australia) and Radu Ionicioiu (Institute of Quantum Computing, Canada) provide a new perspe ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Dec 14, 2011 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (6) | comments 6 | with audio podcast

One clock with two times: When quantum mechanics meets general relativity

The unification of quantum mechanics and Einstein's general relativity is one of the most exciting and still open questions in modern physics. General relativity, the joint theory of gravity, space and time ...

Physics / Quantum Physics

created Oct 19, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (22) | comments 8 | with audio podcast