Graphite, long thought mundane, hides a shocking secret — it can become a superconducting magnet when cooled and configured just right. This breaks fundamental assumptions in physics.
Category: physics – Page 5
“Einstein Was Right All Along”: This Atomic Clock on the ISS Is Putting General Relativity to Its Ultimate Test
IN A NUTSHELL 🚀 The PHARAO mission will launch an atomic clock to the International Space Station to test Einstein’s theory of general relativity. ⏰ This clock aims to measure time with unprecedented precision, detecting variations even at levels equivalent to a one-meter altitude change. 🔬 Advances in atomic clock technology, including laser-cooling techniques, enhance
Redefining physics to roll a ball vertically
Researchers from the University of Waterloo have achieved a feat previously thought to be impossible—getting a sphere to roll down a totally vertical surface without applying any external force.
The spontaneous rolling motion, captured by high-speed cameras, was an unexpected observation after months of trial, error, and theoretical calculations by two Waterloo research teams.
“When we first saw it happening, we were frankly in disbelief,” said Dr. Sushanta Mitra, a professor of mechanical and mechatronics engineering and executive director of the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology.
Ultra-thin lenses halve incident wavelength to make infrared light visible
Physicists at ETH Zurich have developed a lens that can transform infrared light into visible light by halving the wavelength of incident light. The study is published in Advanced Materials.
Lenses are the most widely used optical devices. Camera lenses or objectives, for example, produce a sharp photo or video by directing light at a focal point. The speed of evolution in the field of optics in recent decades is exemplified by the transformation of conventional bulky cameras into today’s compact smartphone cameras.
Even high-performance smartphone cameras still require a stack of lenses that often account for the thickest part of the phone. This size constraint is an inherent feature of classic lens design—a thick lens is crucial for bending light to capture a sharp image on the camera sensor.
New laser smaller than a penny can measure objects at ultrafast rates
Researchers from the University of Rochester and University of California, Santa Barbara, engineered a laser device smaller than a penny that they say could power everything from the LiDAR systems used in self-driving vehicles to gravitational wave detection, one of the most delicate experiments in existence to observe and understand our universe.
Laser-based measurement techniques, known as optical metrology, can be used to study the physical properties of objects and materials. But current optical metrology requires bulky and expensive equipment to achieve delicate laser-wave control, creating a bottleneck for deploying streamlined, cost-effective systems.
The new chip-scale laser, described in a paper published in Light: Science & Applications, can conduct extremely fast and accurate measurements by very precisely changing its color across a broad spectrum of light at very fast rates—about 10 quintillion times per second.
From infinite past to future: Simulation tracks complete journey of gravitational wave through black hole spacetime
In a new Physical Review Letters study, researchers have successfully followed a gravitational wave’s complete journey from the infinite past to the infinite future as it encounters a black hole.
Reported by scientists from the University of Otago and the University of Canterbury, the study represents the first time anyone has captured the full cause-and-effect relationship of gravitational wave scattering in a single simulation.
The researchers are tackling the scattering problem in gravitational physics. In other words, they want to understand what happens to gravitational waves when they encounter massive objects (like black holes) and scatter off them.
