In early May, news reports gushed that a quantum computation device had for the first time outperformed classical computers, solving certain problems thousands of times faster. The media coverage sent ripples of excitement through the technology community. A full-on quantum computer, if ever built, would revolutionize large swathes of computer science, running many algorithms dramatically…
If physicists had a holy grail it would go by the name of Quantum Gravity. For 60 years researchers have been searching for a way to unite the very large and the very small into a single coherent theory. But for all their efforts, Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity — which describes the Universe at…
As an undergraduate at Oxford University in the mid-1970s, K. Birgitta Whaley struggled to choose between chemistry and physics. Now, as a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and director of its Quantum Information and Computation Center, she doesn’t have to: Her research interests span all realms quantum, including both chemistry and physics, as…
The notion of the speed of light as the cosmic speed limit is based on the assumption that particles of light, called photons, have no mass. But astrophysical observations cannot rule out the slim chance that photons do have a tiny bit of mass—a prospect with wide ramifications in physics. For instance, if photons weigh…
According to modern quantum theory, energy fields permeate the universe, and flurries of energy in these fields, called “particles” when they are pointlike and “waves” when they are diffuse, serve as the building blocks of matter and forces. But new findings suggest this wave-particle picture offers only a superficial view of nature’s constituents. If each…
In the course of exploring the properties of a strange subatomic particle, physicists may have stumbled upon something even stranger: a mysterious and exotic new form of matter. The intriguing discovery was made more or less simultaneously by two collaborations: the Belle experiment at the Japanese High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) and BESIII experiment…
Does E always equal mc²? University of Arizona physicist Andrei Lebed suspects not – and plans to try and check. Einstein’s famous equation describes the fact that energy and mass are essentially the same thing and can be converted into one other. It’s since been validated in countless experiments and calculations – indeed, many technologies…
The Large Hadron Collider will operate for two more months then shut down through 2014, allowing engineers to lay thousands more superconducting cables aimed at bringing the machine up to “full design energy.” This will vastly improve its capacity to simulate the moments after the Big Bang nearly 14 billion years ago.
Physicists have created a quantum gas capable of reaching temperatures below absolute zero and paving the way for future quantum inventions. The chilly substance was composed of potassium atoms which were held in a lattice arrangement using a combination of lasers and magnetic fields. According to a news report in the journal Nature, by tweaking…
Ordinary earthworms are proving to be a sophisticated chemistry lab: they can put together substances with unusual light-emitting properties. It is the first time organisms other than fungi and bacteria have been seen to do this. Mark Green at King’s College London has spent his career making quantum dots – nanometre-sized chunks of semiconducting metals…