Interactions & forces, as a research area, focuses on the quantitative description and theoretical understanding of how physical entities influence one another via fundamental interactions and emergent effective forces. It encompasses studies of gravitational, electromagnetic, strong, and weak interactions, along with interatomic, intermolecular, and many-body forces in condensed matter, soft matter, and plasma systems. Research typically integrates field theories, potential models, and numerical simulations to characterize force laws, energy landscapes, and response functions across scales, from subatomic particles to macroscopic structures, enabling predictive models of structure, dynamics, and phase behavior in diverse physical and engineered systems.
It's one thing to design a pharmaceutical drug. It's another to know if and why it actually works; not on paper or in a computer model, but inside the chaotic world of living systems, where proteins twist into shape, atoms ...
Quantum Physics
Jun 25, 2026
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How the proteins in our bodies bind together to form protein complexes plays a critical role in numerous cell functions—staving off diseases, for instance, or transporting ions across cell membranes. A better understanding ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Jun 24, 2026
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5
This April, when the spring breeze carried the formal acceptance notice of our paper by the Journal of the American Chemical Society to my desk, my thoughts instantly drifted back to the late Phil Geissler. A legendary physical ...
Birds in flocks, bacteria and cells: In many collective systems, individual elements respond to only part of their surroundings, seemingly defying Newton's third law of motion—action equals reaction. These exceptions are ...
General Physics
Jun 12, 2026
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Researchers have demonstrated the ability to use van der Waals forces to tune the physical and electronic properties of ferroelectric thin films. The work opens the door to new techniques for engineering materials for use ...
Nanophysics
Jun 8, 2026
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Inside cells, certain functions are carried out by locally adjusting molecular composition. This condensation of material results in the formation of dense droplets that can dynamically rearrange. Because of this, interactions ...
General Physics
Jun 5, 2026
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A research team led by Professor Shuichi Hiraoka at the University of Tokyo and Professor Masanori Tachikawa at Yokohama City University has quantitatively analyzed how molecules pass through dynamic nanoscale pores using ...
Nanomaterials
Jun 3, 2026
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Water molecules do not simply swirl around in complete disorder; they can form certain preferred structures. This scientific fact is often presented in entirely unscientific ways. For example, when people speak of an alleged ...
General Physics
May 18, 2026
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The task of gently transporting a microscopic particle from one point to another along a winding path, and then bringing it back using nothing more than a single, compact chip is a challenge we set out to address in our new ...
Researchers have developed a sensor about the size of a grain of rice that can measure forces and twisting motions in all directions using light instead of traditional electronics. The new sensor could help robotic tools ...
Optics & Photonics
May 9, 2026
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