When ice is warmed, the water molecules forming its structure vibrate more and more vigorously until finally the forces between them are no longer strong enough to hold them together – the ice melts and turns into liquid ...
Quantum Physics
Apr 7, 2014
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Phase transitions between different states of matter are normally driven by random thermal motions of atoms. However, when phase transitions occur at temperatures approaching absolute zero, quantum mechanical fluctuations ...
Quantum Physics
Mar 20, 2014
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(Phys.org) —In theory, Maxwell's demon can decrease the entropy of a system by opening and closing a door at appropriate times to separate hot and cold gas molecules. But as physicist Leó Szilárd pointed out in 1929, ...
New technology that breaks the quantum measurement barrier has been developed to detect the gravity waves first predicted by Einstein in 1916.
Optics & Photonics
Aug 16, 2013
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One of the many counterintuitive and bizarre insights of quantum mechanics is that even in a vacuum—what many of us think of as an empty void—all is not completely still. Low levels of noise, known as quantum fluctuations, ...
Quantum Physics
Aug 7, 2013
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(Phys.org) —Researchers working at a lab at Harvard University have developed a technique that allows for taking the temperature of individual living cells. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the team describes ...
Basic chemistry tells us that a bond between atoms can form if it is energetically more favorable for the atoms to stick together than staying apart. This fundamentally requires an attractive force between the atoms. However, ...
Materials Science
Jul 31, 2013
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The early galaxies of the universe were very different from today's galaxies. Using new detailed studies carried out with the ESO Very Large Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope, researchers, including members from the ...
Astronomy
Jul 3, 2013
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(Phys.org) —As the universe expands, it is continually subjected to energy shifts, or "quantum fluctuations," that send out little pulses of "sound" into the fabric of spacetime. In fact, the universe is thought to have ...
General Physics
Apr 3, 2013
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(Phys.org)—Physicists working at the University of Colorado have succeeded in demonstrating one of the major tenets of quantum mechanics—namely the Heisenberg uncertainty principle—at the macro level. In their paper ...
