How many zebrafish constitute a school? 'Three,' say physicists

Physicists are also interested in fish—above all when they are researching the formation of structures. A research team from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) and the University of Bristol (United Kingdom) has ...

The strangest coincidence in physics: The AdS/CFT correspondence

Attempts to turn string theory into a workable theory of nature have led to the potential conclusion that our universe is a hologram—that what we perceive as three spatial dimensions is actually composed of only two. The ...

Why string theory requires extra dimensions

String theory found its origins in an attempt to understand the nascent experiments revealing the strong nuclear force. Eventually another theory, one based on particles called quarks and force carriers called gluons, would ...

How to think about a four-dimensional universe

In Einstein's famous theory of relativity the concepts of immutable space and time aren't just put aside, they're explicitly and emphatically rejected. Space and time are now woven into a coexisting fabric. That is to say, ...

Underwater mass spectrometer developed for deep sea exploration

A research team led by Prof. Chen Chilai from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed a deep-sea mass spectrometer. It has completed several sea trials in a specific area ...

Black holes might be defects in spacetime

A team of theoretical physicists have discovered a strange structure in space-time that to an outside observer would look exactly like a black hole, but upon closer inspection would be anything but: they would be defects ...

Spiral dislocation gives 3D topological photonics a robust edge

Crystals have enthralled humans for thousands of years with their visual beauty and elegant symmetrical shapes, and, more recently, with their numerous technological applications. Fundamentally, these materials are based ...

Shining a light on synthetic dimensions

Humans experience the world in three dimensions, but a collaboration in Japan has developed a way to create synthetic dimensions to better understand the fundamental laws of the universe and possibly apply them to advanced ...

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