Tag Archives: physics

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. When it comes to understanding the fabric of the universe, most of what scientists think exists is consigned to a dark, murky domain. Ordinary matter, the stuff we can see and touch, accounts for just 5 percent of the cosmos. …

Wouldn't it be cool if you never had to charge your cell phone? I'm sure that's what a lot of people were thinking recently, when a company called BetaVolt said it had developed a coin-sized “nuclear battery” that would last for 50 years. Is it for real? Yes it is. …

Some of my favorite things to look for in the night sky (besides the International Space Station) are the planets. If you need help finding them, I recommend Heavens-Above. It's a website where you can enter your location and it will show you what's currently visible in your area. But …

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. All the magnets you have ever interacted with, such as the tchotchkes stuck to your refrigerator door, are magnetic for the same reason. But what if there were another, stranger way to make a material magnetic? In 1966, the Japanese …

Why are we even having this discussion? It's crazy that there are people who not only believe the Earth is flat like a pizza but also try to prove it. It's like trying to prove you shouldn't add pineapple as a topping on your pizza (which you obviously should). Maybe …

Perhaps the most iconic instrument in modern rock is the guitar. It's really just a bunch of strings stretched across a board, which you can strum to make awesome tunes, thanks to the physics of waves and sound. A Wave Pulse on a String Let's start with a demo you …

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. In 1956, David Pines formulated a phantom. He predicted the existence of seas of electric ripples that could neutralize each other, rendering the overall ocean motionless even as individual waves ebbed and flowed. The oddity, which came to be known …

“Where did all this come from? How did it all get started?” These are the questions that Dr. Nergis Mavalvala asks about the universe. It’s not the meaning-of-life stuff in the traditional sense, but more of how everything around us came to be. These are the questions we all have, …

The universe is a hologram. At least, that’s one of the central ideas in celestial holography, which is what Dr. Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski works on. She’s the founder and principal investigator of the Celestial Holography Initiative at the Perimeter Institute. The Universe Is a What? Yes, you read that right: …

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Our planet is doomed. In a few billion years, the sun will exhaust its hydrogen fuel and swell into a red giant—a star so big it will scorch, blacken and swallow up the inner planets. While red giants are bad …