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condensed matter physics

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Dendritic ice crystals grow from top to bottom across the frame of a video.
condensed matter physics

Controversy Continues Over Whether Hot Water Freezes Faster Than Cold

By Adam Mann
June 29, 2022
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Decades after a Tanzanian teenager initiated study of the “Mpemba effect,” the effort to confirm or refute it is leading physicists toward new theories about how substances relax to equilibrium.

quantum physics

Quantum Complexity Tamed by Machine Learning

By Charlie Wood
February 7, 2022
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If only scientists understood exactly how electrons act in molecules, they’d be able to predict the behavior of everything from experimental drugs to high-temperature superconductors. Following decades of physics-based insights, artificial intelligence systems are taking the next leap.

A Kagome lattice with atomic spin arrows placed on the edges.
quantum physics

Quantum Simulators Create a Totally New Phase of Matter

By Charlie Wood
December 2, 2021
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One of the first goals of quantum computing has been to recreate bizarre quantum systems that can’t be studied in an ordinary computer. A dark-horse quantum simulator has now done just that.

A video of masks swirling around.
quantum computing

Major Quantum Computing Strategy Suffers Serious Setbacks

By Philip Ball
September 29, 2021
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So-called topological quantum computing would avoid many of the problems that stand in the way of full-scale quantum computers. But high-profile missteps have led some experts to question whether the field is fooling itself.

A grid of balls connected by lines in a triangular pattern.
condensed matter physics

Physicists Create a Bizarre ‘Wigner Crystal’ Made Purely of Electrons

By Karmela Padavic-Callaghan
August 12, 2021
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The unambiguous discovery of a Wigner crystal relied on a novel technique for probing the insides of complex materials.

Animation of a gemstone flipping up and down between mirror-image states.
quantum computing

Eternal Change for No Energy: A Time Crystal Finally Made Real

By Natalie Wolchover
July 30, 2021
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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 complicated arrangement of orange and purple bands against a black background.
condensed matter physics

The ‘Weirdest’ Matter, Made of Partial Particles, Defies Description

By Thomas Lewton
July 26, 2021
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Theorists are in a frenzy over “fractons,” bizarre, but potentially useful, hypothetical particles that can only move in combination with one another.

An illustration showing three stacked sheets of carbon atoms, each offset from the one below by half a lattice spacing.]
condensed matter physics

Graphene Superconductors May Be Less Exotic Than Physicists Hoped

By Charlie Wood
June 14, 2021
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Superconductivity has been discovered in graphene devices without any twists, suggesting the form of superconductivity in the material might be mundane after all.

Orange hills (polaritons) against a black background. Below each hill, an arrow points to an angular position on a circle.
explainers

The Near-Magical Mystery of Quasiparticles

By Thomas Lewton
March 24, 2021
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The zoo of spontaneously emerging particlelike entities known as quasiparticles has grown quickly and become more and more exotic. Here are a few of the most curious and potentially useful examples.


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