https://phys.org/physics-news/physics/ en-us The latest news on physics, materials, nanotech, science and technology. Researchers have designed and built the first 3D device that can make objects invisible to heat, an advance that could transform how we protect sensitive electronics, manage heat in microchips and shield equipment from thermal detection. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-3d-thermal-cloak.html General Physics Mon, 13 Jul 2026 14:57:06 EDT news703173398 Researchers have captured how a molecule redistributes energy after absorbing light, differentiating the roles of individual atoms in the process. They used X-ray flashes from the European XFEL to show that different atoms in the same molecule can reveal different aspects of the process. The study provides evidence that excitation by light can enhance an atom's sensitivity to the motion of nearby atoms. The new method for following ultrafast chemical reactions at the atomic scale, in real time, can help researchers understand photostability in DNA, energy flow in light-harvesting materials and other fundamental processes driven by light. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-atoms-stories-molecule-trillionths.html General Physics Mon, 13 Jul 2026 12:00:03 EDT news703155128 The mysterious substance that binds galaxies together could naturally be "in tune" with a hidden fifth dimension, according to a new University of Sheffield theory aiming to shed light on one of science's biggest enigmas: dark matter. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-hidden-dimension-tune-dark-resonance.html General Physics Mon, 13 Jul 2026 08:30:02 EDT news703149689 For over a century, the accepted value for a firefly's brightness has mostly stood, tracing its origins to experiments carried out in 1912. Through rigorous new analysis published in the American Journal of Physics, David Silver of Remiza AI in New York has discovered that this value has likely been vastly overestimated. His results provide a stark reminder of what can happen when widely accepted older measurements are converted into modern standard units. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-firefly-brightness-cautionary-tale-older.html General Physics Mon, 13 Jul 2026 08:20:09 EDT news703147806 For nearly a century, astronomers have known that the universe is expanding. In the late 1990s, two independent teams, the Supernova Cosmology Project, led by Saul Perlmutter, and the High-Z Supernova Search Team, led by Brian Schmidt and Adam Riess, discovered something strange: The expansion is speeding up. The finding earned them the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics. The leading explanation for this acceleration is "dark energy," a mysterious force usually modeled as a constant called Lambda, pushing space apart. Combined with cold dark matter, this gives us the LCDM model, the standard picture of the cosmos for the past 25 years. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-dark-energy-flips-hubble-tension.html General Physics Fri, 10 Jul 2026 17:40:01 EDT news702895965 Physicists at the University of California, Irvine, have developed an artificial intelligence system that can autonomously design theoretical physics models, a task traditionally carried out by human theorists. The approach allows researchers to explore large, uncharted areas of particle physics theory, helping identify promising new explanations for the behavior of neutrinos. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-ai-particle-neutrinos-tiny-mass.html General Physics Thu, 09 Jul 2026 16:09:05 EDT news702832117 Quantum computers still face limits when it comes to storing information. Researchers at ETH Zurich are now turning to mechanical vibrations rather than electromagnetic memory. Their new vibrating memory can store significantly more information in a smaller volume. Combined with a suitable computer architecture, it also enables the efficient solution of complex computational problems. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-mechanical-vibrations-magnetic-memory-quantum.html General Physics Thu, 09 Jul 2026 10:40:17 EDT news702807933 Advanced magnetic memory and spintronic devices rely on the ability to control magnetic states using electricity. Today, such technologies work by manipulating relatively simple magnetic structures found in ferromagnets, where all the magnetic moments point the same way. However, researchers are becoming increasingly interested in controlling more complex magnetic systems because these could offer higher information density and improved efficiency. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-route-electrically-helimagnetic.html General Physics Thu, 09 Jul 2026 07:48:24 EDT news702802030 If a liquid is cooled slowly to its freezing point, it becomes a crystal in which the constituent particles are arranged in an ordered pattern. In contrast, when the liquid is cooled very quickly, the particles are unable to arrange themselves in an ordered fashion, and it becomes glass. Glassy materials are all around us in everyday life. Common examples include window glass, certain metal alloys, polymers, foams, gels and even soft materials like emulsions and colloids. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-glasses-suddenly-deform-smoothly.html General Physics Wed, 08 Jul 2026 19:00:05 EDT news702746156 In 2024, a U.S. government official warned that Russia could be developing a new satellite designed to carry nuclear weapons into space. The statement followed the launch of a suspicious Russian satellite into low-Earth orbit in 2022, just a few weeks before the country's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-space-sensor-hidden-nuclear-weapons.html General Physics Wed, 08 Jul 2026 11:00:01 EDT news702570976 Quantum computers, devices that store and process information leveraging the principles of quantum mechanics, have been found to be promising for tackling some problems that cannot be solved by classical computers. Quantum computers store data in the form of qubits (i.e., quantum bits), units of information that can exist in combinations of different states, instead of being limited to a binary value (i.e., 0 or 1), like classical bits. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-theorized-electron-helium-qubit-strong.html General Physics Wed, 08 Jul 2026 10:20:02 EDT news702711987 Normally, a material absorbs and emits heat in a linked way: A surface that absorbs heat well at a certain wavelength and direction will also emit heat in the same way. This fundamental relationship, known as reciprocity, limits the ability to independently control heat absorption and heat emission. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-fundamental-concept.html General Physics Tue, 07 Jul 2026 08:00:03 EDT news702627819 The rise of AI has created an almost insatiable appetite for computing power. Training and running AI systems requires vast numbers of transistors, and engineers are now racing to pack more of them onto every chip. With their existing designs, however, silicon transistors are rapidly running up against physical limits on how small they can get. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-scientists-smallest-contacts-future-chips.html General Physics Tue, 07 Jul 2026 05:40:02 EDT news702562568 Neutron sources can be directly identified from measured spectra rather than proxies using inference tools adapted from cosmology, according to a University of Michigan Engineering study published in Physical Review Applied. The method can improve nuclear security by helping intercept materials at ports or borders or guide first responders during emergency response. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-neutron-sources-inference-tools-cosmology.html General Physics Mon, 06 Jul 2026 15:40:04 EDT news702562752 Viscosity is one of the most fundamental physical properties used to describe how materials flow. It governs the movement of liquids, molten rocks and even slowly deforming regions deep inside the Earth. While scientists have long studied materials with low or moderate viscosities, a simple but important question has remained largely unexplored: Is there a physically meaningful upper limit to viscosity? https://phys.org/news/2026-07-earth-deepest-upper-limit-viscosity.html General Physics Mon, 06 Jul 2026 08:20:07 EDT news702543714 The shape of biological structures, ranging from flower petals to the limbs or organs of animals, is often naturally best suited for performing specific functions. Biological structures also often present curved surfaces with specific functional advantages, such as facilitating the drainage of water, increasing a structure's strength or aerodynamic efficiency, or supporting heavy loads. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-bioinspired-strategy-complex-3d-shrinkage.html General Physics Mon, 06 Jul 2026 07:20:07 EDT news702118964 Everything around us, from atoms and molecules to planets and galaxies, is governed by two extraordinarily successful theories of physics: quantum mechanics and gravity. Quantum mechanics explains the behavior of the microscopic world, while Einstein's theory of gravity describes the motion of stars, black holes and the expansion of the universe. Yet despite their successes, physicists are still searching for a theory of "quantum gravity" that would unite them into a single description of nature. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-quantum-gravity-ordinary-spacetime-superposition.html General Physics Thu, 02 Jul 2026 12:20:08 EDT news702208921 Dark matter accounts for 85% of the matter in the universe, but scientists still do not know what it is made of. A study, published in Physical Review Letters, by Rice University researchers proposes a detector design that could help search for axions, hypothetical particles that many physicists think could make up dark matter. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-quantum-semiconductor-dark.html General Physics Thu, 02 Jul 2026 10:00:03 EDT news702203102 Hawking radiation is a form of radiation emitted by black holes, as theoretically predicted by Stephen Hawking. It suggests that black holes do not merely swallow matter—as had previously been assumed—but also emit very faint radiation themselves. This radiation has not yet been observed in space; instead, researchers use models in the laboratory that mimic the behavior of black holes. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-analog-gravity-advance-insights-hawking.html General Physics Thu, 02 Jul 2026 09:40:03 EDT news702202982 By remotely accessing an IBM quantum computer, a research scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has successfully simulated a key process in particle physics: hadronization. Although based on a simplified model of quantum mechanics, the project lays the groundwork for how physicists can leverage the power of quantum computers to make large scientific calculations beyond the capabilities of classical supercomputers. The research is published in the journal Physical Review D. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-quantum-simulates-hadronization-qubits.html General Physics Tue, 30 Jun 2026 18:40:01 EDT news702058201 Plutonium is one of the most complex elements in the periodic table. First synthesized and isolated in 1940 by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, plutonium has been studied closely for more than eight decades. It's most often associated with its role in nuclear security, but it's also vital to nuclear power, where it is produced in reactors and can be recycled as fuel. Despite plutonium's importance, some of its most fundamental behaviors remain a mystery. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-plutonium-compound-rare-topological-quantum.html General Physics Mon, 29 Jun 2026 19:30:01 EDT news701969521 The world's most powerful particle accelerator will shutter operations Monday for four years of renovations to dramatically boost its collision capacity and the potential for unlocking one of the greatest mysteries of the universe: dark matter. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-world-largest-particle-smasher-halts.html General Physics Sat, 27 Jun 2026 15:29:47 EDT news701792967 In quantum mechanics, the geometry of quantum states has emerged as a powerful framework for understanding phenomena ranging from electrical conductivity to superconductivity. One research direction aims to extend these geometric concepts to non-Hermitian quantum mechanics—where systems can exchange energy with their environment—including the generalization of the Berry phase, a key geometric quantity, to the non-Hermitian case. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-hermitian-geometry-reveals-quantum-amplification.html General Physics Sat, 27 Jun 2026 11:00:02 EDT news701439389 Controlling and trapping molecules, units of a substance consisting of two or more chemically bound atoms, with laser light is significantly more challenging than trapping individual atoms. This is because molecules exhibit more complex vibrational and rotational dynamics that make them more difficult to cool and trap. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-metal-hydride-molecule-laser-path.html General Physics Fri, 26 Jun 2026 07:40:01 EDT news701522897 A study published in Nature Physics provides new molecular-level evidence from simulations that liquid water is not a single uniform substance, but a constantly shifting mixture of two distinct microscopic structures. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-scientists-molecular-evidence-liquid.html General Physics Thu, 25 Jun 2026 14:20:03 EDT news701609342 When the desert horned lizard (Phrynosoma platyrhinos) is thirsty, it cannot just lap up water or scoop it up like a bird because it lives in environments where water is extremely scarce. Typically, it's found in damp soil or, even more rarely, in drops of rain. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-thirsty-lizards-harvesting.html General Physics Thu, 25 Jun 2026 10:10:01 EDT news701599639 Gravity, the force that attracts objects toward each other, is currently framed by Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. This framework describes gravity as the curvature of spacetime, the invisible four-dimensional fabric of the universe. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-thermodynamic-approach-gravity-cosmic-dark.html General Physics Thu, 25 Jun 2026 08:20:01 EDT news701522878 Sound waves, light waves and other types of waves, generally spread freely through space and over time. In 1958, physicist Philip W. Anderson first described a phenomenon via which irregularities or other sources of disorder in materials would prevent waves from propagating freely, which is now known as Anderson localization. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-quantum-reveal-sided-motion-elusive.html General Physics Thu, 25 Jun 2026 06:40:01 EDT news701429151 Deep inside gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn, hydrogen and helium coexist under pressures millions of times greater than Earth's atmosphere. Under those conditions, helium may separate from hydrogen and influence a planet's internal heat flow, structure and magnetic field. Understanding these processes and how these materials behave under extreme conditions is essential to building accurate models of planetary evolution. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-laser-helium-pressures.html General Physics Wed, 24 Jun 2026 19:50:01 EDT news701539261 Over the past decade, Professor L. Mahadevan's Soft Math Lab at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) has helped establish how the ancient Japanese paper arts of folding or cutting can be used to inversely design structures that transform dramatically in shape and function. Now, the researchers have created a new class of shape-changing matter, based not on folds or cuts, but linkages—networks of interconnected scissor mechanisms that collapse into lines and deploy into curved surfaces. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-collapsible-scissored-surfaces-trilogy-metamaterial.html General Physics Wed, 24 Jun 2026 15:20:03 EDT news701524441