Random matrix theory approaches the mystery of the neutrino mass

When any matter is divided into smaller and smaller pieces, eventually all you are left with—when it cannot be divided any further—is a particle. Currently, there are 12 different known elementary particles, which in ...

Fundamental constants: Is the universe fine-tuned for life?

Imagine a universe with extremely strong gravity. Stars would be able to form from very little material. They would be smaller than in our universe and live for a much shorter amount of time. But could life evolve there? ...

Quarks and gluons: The JADE experiment at DESY

A new paper in The European Physical Journal H (EPJ H) describes the JADE experiment at DESY in Hamburg, in which high-energy electron-positron collisions led to the discovery of the particle that holds quarks together to ...

Underground Italian lab searches for signals of quantum gravity

For decades, physicists have been hunting for a quantum-gravity model that would unify quantum physics, the laws that govern the very small, and gravity. One major obstacle has been the difficulty in testing the predictions ...

How to test whether we're living in a computer simulation

Physicists have long struggled to explain why the universe started out with conditions suitable for life to evolve. Why do the physical laws and constants take the very specific values that allow stars, planets and ultimately ...

Researchers create first quasiparticle Bose-Einstein condensate

Physicists have created the first Bose-Einstein condensate—the mysterious fifth state of matter—made from quasiparticles, entities that do not count as elementary particles but that can still have elementary-particle ...

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