Sending information backward in time may be less impossible than it sounds.
Category: physics – Page 8
New microwave neural network method could compress and secure wireless communications
One year after unveiling a first-of-its-kind “microwave brain” microchip capable of computing on ultrafast data and wireless signals, researchers from the Cornell Duffield College of Engineering have shown how the chip can encode information into its own language.
The work builds on the world’s first integrated microwave neural network designed by Bal Govind, Ph.D., and experimentally demonstrated with Maxwell Anderson. Together, they showed that the low-power chip could harness the physics of microwaves to emulate the brain’s pattern-finding abilities and perform computations almost instantaneously.
In a new study published in Nature Communications, the researchers found that the device can now use what they describe as microwave token embeddings—similar to the tokens used in large language models—to encode messages into radio signals and compress data, capabilities that could enable faster, more secure communications for satellites, drones and other technologies.
Neutron star collisions may forge gold more slowly than expected
Where do gold, platinum and uranium come from? This question has fascinated astrophysicists and nuclear physicists for decades. A research team from Technische Universität Darmstadt has now taken an important step toward understanding the origin of heavy elements. Their findings are published in Physical Review Letters.
Approximately half of all elements heavier than iron are produced through the rapid neutron-capture process, commonly known as the r-process. This process occurs under extreme conditions, such as during the collision of two neutron stars. In these events, atomic nuclei are bombarded with neutrons at an extraordinary rate, enabling the formation of increasingly heavier elements.
A major challenge is that many of the nuclei involved are extremely neutron-rich and cannot be studied experimentally in laboratories. Scientists therefore rely on theoretical models, whose predictions often diverge significantly when applied to regions far from experimentally known nuclei. Some of these exotic nuclei can be produced at research facilities such as GSI/FAIR, but many remain beyond experimental reach.
One LED produces four stable colors at room temperature
Full-color displays normally require separate red, green and blue light emitters. A team from the University of Osaka and Ritsumeikan University has demonstrated another approach: a single light-emitting layer that produces several colors when electrically powered at room temperature. The study was published in Applied Physics Letters.
Micro-LED displays promise high brightness, energy efficiency and resolution. However, conventional green and red nitride LEDs can show changes in color as the current increases. Producing several colors also generally requires multiple light-emitting layers or separately manufactured chips, making it difficult to place many pixels into a very small area.
The team used a manufacturing method already widely employed for nitride LEDs to create aluminum gallium nitride LEDs containing terbium ions.
New twist on the Einstein problem reveals unexpected physics
A shape that captured worldwide attention for solving a decades-old mathematical puzzle has returned to the spotlight. While the shape’s properties allowed it to solve previous puzzles, little is known about its other associated properties, creating opportunities for further discovery. These unexplored properties may also help solve new physics mysteries, such as how to twist light into striking chiral patterns.
In an article published in Nature Communications, researchers from the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, and collaborating institutions created optical structures based on the “Smith hat,” an unusual shape that solves the so-called Einstein problem in mathematics. By shining laser light onto these structures, the team discovered diffraction behaviors never before observed in conventional quasicrystals.
The long-standing Einstein problem asks whether a single tile shape, or “monotile,” can be used to cover an entire surface in a nonrepeating pattern. While periodic tilings such as honeycombs or checkerboards repeat regularly, an aperiodic monotile can cover all of space without ever producing a repeating arrangement. In 2023, the first such monotile, the Smith hat, was discovered, sparking widespread interest in the scientific community.
Pulling Graphite Out of Thin Air
Graphite, the carbon center of your humble #2 pencil, is also an essential component in technologies such as batteries, smartphones, laptops, and industrial power equipment. Today, nearly all of this critical mineral has to be mined and processed and, in the United States, imported.
But now, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), UC Berkeley, and Estonia’s National Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics have shown a promising way to convert waste carbon pulled from the air into graphite, opening up a potential alternative to mining. The work was published recently in the journal Nature Communications.
Researchers built a custom microscope setup to watch a process known as molten-salt electrolysis, which uses electricity and hot liquid salts to turn carbon dioxide into solid carbon. For the first time, researchers were able to watch the process in real time inside the corrosive, 500-degree-Celsius molten salts while the system was running.
World Labs’ SimtoReal Leap Let Robots Run An Hour Alone
🚨 World Labs just showed a big sim-to-real leap: robots that can run autonomously for a full hour without human help.
Better world models and physics transfer are making longer, more reliable autonomous runs possible.
This is a practical win for factories and warehouses — less supervision, higher uptime, and lower deployment costs.
The sim-to-real gap is getting smaller.
Full analysis: [ https://creedtec.online/world-labs-sim-to-real-leap-let-robo…our-alone/](https://creedtec.online/world-labs-sim-to-real-leap-let-robo…our-alone/)
#IndustrialRobotics #SimToReal #Automation
Moon’s thick crust could amplify elusive gravitational-wave signals
Gravitational waves are tiny ripples in the fabric of spacetime that are produced when massive objects in the cosmos accelerate or collide. By detecting these waves, astrophysicists can study various cosmic events, including black hole mergers, neutron star collisions and the early evolution of the universe.
There are several gravitational-wave observatories in different geographic regions worldwide. While these detectors are highly sensitive to the tiny changes associated with ripples in spacetime, they cannot yet detect waves across all frequency ranges.
Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Peking University recently revisited the possibility of using the moon to amplify gravitational waves with frequencies between 0.01 and 1 hertz (Hz), a range that remains largely inaccessible to current gravitational-wave detectors.