What's up in
Physics
Latest Articles
Physicists Create a Bizarre ‘Wigner Crystal’ Made Purely of Electrons
The unambiguous discovery of a Wigner crystal relied on a novel technique for probing the insides of complex materials.
How Steven Weinberg Transformed Physics and Physicists
When Steven Weinberg died last month, the world lost one of its most profound thinkers.
Turing Patterns Turn Up in a Tiny Crystal
The mechanism behind leopard spots and zebra stripes also appears to explain the patterned growth of a bismuth crystal, extending Alan Turing’s 1952 idea to the atomic scale.
Neither Star nor Planet: A Strange Brown Dwarf Puzzles Astronomers
Brown dwarfs such as “The Accident” are illuminating the murky borderlands that separate planets from stars.
Eternal Change for No Energy: A Time Crystal Finally Made Real
Like a perpetual motion machine, a time crystal forever cycles between states without consuming energy. Physicists claim to have built this new phase of matter inside a quantum computer.
A Soil-Science Revolution Upends Plans to Fight Climate Change
A centuries-old concept in soil science has recently been thrown out. Yet it remains a key ingredient in everything from climate models to advanced carbon-capture projects.
The ‘Weirdest’ Matter, Made of Partial Particles, Defies Description
Theorists are in a frenzy over “fractons,” bizarre, but potentially useful, hypothetical particles that can only move in combination with one another.
How Bell’s Theorem Proved ‘Spooky Action at a Distance’ Is Real
The root of today’s quantum revolution was John Stewart Bell’s 1964 theorem showing that quantum mechanics really permits instantaneous connections between far-apart locations.
A Video Tour of the Standard Model
The Standard Model is a sweeping equation that has correctly predicted the results of virtually every experiment ever conducted, as Quanta explores in a new video.