https://phys.org/physics-news/physics/ en-us The latest news on physics, materials, nanotech, science and technology. You sit down to meditate. A conversation returns, then thoughts. You bring your attention back to the breath. Sometimes, after many such returns, the effort eases. Thoughts lose their urgency, while awareness remains clear. Less occupies the mind, yet the moment still feels whole. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-meditation-reveal-su3-symmetry-universe.html General Physics Tue, 13 Oct 2026 17:40:08 EDT news711105159 Recent research shows that gravity and quantum information are deeply connected and that the shape of spacetime can be traced back to the way information is stored in quantum fields. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-gravity-quantum-linked-derivation-einstein.html General Physics Mon, 12 Oct 2026 19:20:01 EDT news711039286 Every black hole hides a question at its center. Einstein's theory predicts that whatever falls in is crushed into a singularity, a point of infinite density where the theory itself breaks down. Most physicists expect quantum gravity to replace that point with something finite. But the center lies hidden behind the horizon. How could we ever learn what is there? https://phys.org/news/2026-10-quantum-cores-fingerprints-black-holes.html General Physics Fri, 09 Oct 2026 17:40:01 EDT news710671667 Artificial intelligence is increasingly becoming part of our everyday lives, from digital assistants to robots that respond to their surroundings. Each of these capabilities is based on physical computational processes that consume energy. An international research team led by Hans Briegel from the Department of Theoretical Physics at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, has investigated the physical limits on the efficiency with which intelligent systems process information. Their findings are published in Physical Review X. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-physics-reveals-fundamental-energy-efficiency.html General Physics Fri, 09 Oct 2026 09:30:01 EDT news710753641 Predicting a system's final outcome from its initial state is the ultimate goal for many physicists. In certain complex systems, however, this goal is thwarted by chaos, where even the subtlest tweaks to the initial state can lead to completely different fates, making the system almost impossible to predict. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-nonchaotic-reveals-emerge-seemingly-unpredictable.html General Physics Thu, 08 Oct 2026 17:00:08 EDT news710680141 Some of the best engineers and inventors are copycats. They look at how the natural world solves complex problems and use those mechanisms as the basis for innovations. But Mother Nature doesn't always give up her secrets easily. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-pig-hearts-noise-soft-valves.html General Physics Thu, 08 Oct 2026 07:00:30 EDT news710594285 Francis Halzen, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, spoke with pride on Wednesday about his early promotion of artificial intelligence in his research on neutrinos. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-nobel-physics-winner-pride-ai.html General Physics Wed, 07 Oct 2026 18:40:01 EDT news710587906 Modern technological breakthroughs like lasers, MRI scanners, semiconductors and quantum computers rest on the study of quantum mechanics. However, the field has predominantly focused on (sub)atomic phenomena far removed from our human senses. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-quantum-shifting-centimeter-scale-lab.html General Physics Wed, 07 Oct 2026 14:00:50 EDT news710514722 For decades, researchers around the world have been working toward this goal—and now major advances are following in rapid succession. Vienna is now home to the world's first nuclear clock that stabilizes itself, as atomic clocks typically do. This system has been shown to remain stable for more than 24 hours without intervention, and the related findings are published in the journal Nature. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-nuclear-clock-vienna.html General Physics Wed, 07 Oct 2026 11:00:51 EDT news710523241 The pink ball was introduced for day-night matches over a decade ago, and in June this year the International Cricket Council (ICC) approved a trial of pink balls in Tests expected to be affected by bad light—subject to prior agreement from both teams. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-cricket-day-night-pink-ball.html General Physics Wed, 07 Oct 2026 09:20:01 EDT news710579402 Collisions between particles at high energies can sometimes produce new particles and shed light on interactions between the fundamental constituents of matter. Simulating these collisions and their underlying processes could yield valuable insights into how matter behaves at extremely small scales. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-quantum-shortcut-particle-collisions-easier.html General Physics Wed, 07 Oct 2026 08:00:01 EDT news710065765 Physicist Francis Halzen has an impressively long list of academic accolades—but every October, as the Nobel Prize rolled around, his failure to bag the biggest award of them all left him "miserable," he admits. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-nobel-winner-halzen-years-october.html General Physics Tue, 06 Oct 2026 21:00:01 EDT news710520383 Four decades after the 1986 nuclear disaster, researchers at Leibniz University Hannover and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) examined six tiny, highly radioactive fragments that were released from the destroyed reactor in Ukraine in the wake of the incident. Analyses show that these "hot particles" are far more stable than had previously been assumed. The findings could allow for more precise assessments of the health risks posed by such radioactive particles. The paper is published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-chernobyl-particles-reveal-unexpectedly-stable.html General Physics Tue, 06 Oct 2026 18:20:05 EDT news710509501 Black holes, despite their extreme nature, are described by surprisingly few basic parameters: their mass, charge and spin. Two black holes may have formed for completely different reasons and passed through very different histories, yet still end up in the same final state. John Wheeler summarized this idea with the famous phrase "black holes have no hair." https://phys.org/news/2026-10-black-hole-disturbance-hawking.html General Physics Tue, 06 Oct 2026 10:00:01 EDT news710416753 Francis Halzen won the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for his efforts to demystify a rare group of neutrinos, tiny cosmic particles that scientists believe offer clues to how the universe evolved. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-francis-halzen-nobel-prize-physics.html General Physics Tue, 06 Oct 2026 06:12:06 EDT news710485847 Even the most chaotic quantum systems keep a permanent mark of their own past—a "quantum birthmark"—that never fades. Researchers from Tampere University, Harvard University and TU Dresden discovered the feature in their recent study. Their findings shed new light on the elusive relationship between classical and quantum mechanics. Looking ahead, these quantum birthmarks, along with related phenomena known as "scars," could eventually be harnessed to power next-generation nanoelectronics. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-quantum.html General Physics Mon, 05 Oct 2026 16:00:13 EDT news710425290 Many complex quantum systems rapidly lose the recognizable patterns of their initial states as their components interact. To describe patterns of regular and chaotic motion in specific systems, physicists can construct a mathematical map called an effective phase space. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-scientists-uncover-recurrent-patterns-chaotic.html General Physics Mon, 05 Oct 2026 08:00:04 EDT news709981266 In recent experiments involving hydrogels and water droplets, researchers have proposed that exposure to visible light could make water evaporate faster without heating it. However, direct evidence that light acts on water itself has proven elusive. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-visible-evaporation-rigorous.html General Physics Sat, 03 Oct 2026 12:40:01 EDT news710151999 While scientists are known for their dedication to their research, crawling on the floor to avoid electrocution for the sake of a measurement seems a little excessive. But this is what British physicist John Cockcroft and Irish physicist Ernest T.S. Walton had to do in the early 1930s while studying the structure of atomic nuclei. Luckily, their efforts led to their receiving the Nobel Prize in 1951. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-physicists-uncovered-particle-honored-nobel.html General Physics Fri, 02 Oct 2026 14:00:01 EDT news710159048 Imagine a proton catching a wave and surfing it to gain speed. While the imagery may seem wild, the premise of laser-driven ion acceleration has promise as an alternative to conventional accelerators. However, the ultrathin targets used to drive this increase in ion energy are vulnerable to the weak prepulse that precedes the main high-intensity laser pulse, meaning an adaptation in the process is necessary. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-protons-energy-pulse-lasers.html General Physics Fri, 02 Oct 2026 10:20:08 EDT news710151602 Many systems in nature can settle into several different stable states, with the final state depending on their starting conditions. However, the boundaries separating these states are often far more complicated than they first appear. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-hidden-funnels-complex-stable-states.html General Physics Thu, 01 Oct 2026 15:20:19 EDT news709976676 In the conventional diagram of an atom, the center depicts a nucleus—a spherical cluster of protons and neutrons. But that sphere is a simplification: nuclei can deform into exotic shapes that appear more like a pear, football or Frisbee. Understanding why and when nuclei distort is crucial for predicting and modeling how they will behave. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-exploring-exotic-nuclei.html General Physics Thu, 01 Oct 2026 10:20:32 EDT news710061122 If you mount a pickle on two metal forks and plug it into a socket, one end will light up in a brilliant orange glow. It's a classic K–12 science demonstration, but the exact physics behind the illumination has long remained a mystery. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-pickles-explosive.html General Physics Thu, 01 Oct 2026 08:40:08 EDT news710056261 Muons are constantly being created as cosmic rays collide with molecules in Earth's upper atmosphere. With their ability to penetrate far into dense, solid materials, these cosmic muons are often used to image the insides of objects that are otherwise hidden from view. However, the flow of these natural particles is far too slow for the technique to become both fast and reliable in practical settings. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-laser-muons-images-dense.html General Physics Wed, 30 Sep 2026 09:20:01 EDT news709897836 Boats passing over smooth water form a pair of diffusion wakes behind them veering off at a certain angle. Turbulence occurs along the line directly behind the boat, but the two diffusion waves are at a theoretical angle of 19.5° from the same line, for deep, ideally smooth water. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-years-jet-diffusion-quark-gluon.html General Physics Wed, 30 Sep 2026 07:40:07 EDT news709805374 Isaac Newton is typically portrayed as a solitary scientist with intense focus who was obsessed with power and deeply egotistical. But a new book by Caltech historians Jed Buchwald and Mordechai Feingold takes a deeper look at Newton's life in the two decades leading up to the 1687 publication of his groundbreaking text, Principia Mathematica, when he was 44. Using newly digitized scans of Newton's early writings, Buchwald and Feingold uncover a portrait of the young polymath as a curious and social scholar whose interests were often fleeting. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-revisiting-young-isaac-newton.html General Physics Tue, 29 Sep 2026 19:00:01 EDT news709919401 Electromagnetic waves in the gigahertz (GHz) range, such as those used in mobile communications, can readily pass through many types of glass. However, transmission decreases significantly at terahertz frequencies above a characteristic threshold. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-glass-transparent-terahertz.html General Physics Mon, 28 Sep 2026 13:47:23 EDT news709821749 Researchers at the DarkSide collaboration have unveiled results from a seven-year experiment that tested whether dark matter particles could exist as composites of smaller, elementary particles. While the search turned up no direct evidence of this "ultraheavy nuclear" dark matter, results from the DarkSide-50 detector could lay the groundwork for future experiments, helping physicists work out whether dark matter has an internal structure. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-darkside-detector-nuclear-dark.html General Physics Mon, 28 Sep 2026 12:30:01 EDT news709811061 When light or sound bounces around inside an oddly shaped room, its reflections can quickly become difficult to predict. But new research led by scientists at the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center (CUNY ASRC) shows that waves can behave very differently when they travel through a special class of materials. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-chaos-oddly-cavity.html General Physics Mon, 28 Sep 2026 05:00:03 EDT news709561441 An electron's charge is normally fixed, like a coin you can't break into pieces. But if electrons are cooled close to absolute zero and trapped in a two-dimensional layer under a powerful magnetic field, they organize into a collective state of "quasiparticles" that seem to hold only a fraction of an electron's charge. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-rare-quantum-state-reveals-particles.html General Physics Fri, 25 Sep 2026 09:00:08 EDT news709544881