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To Make the Perfect Mirror, Physicists Confront the Mystery of Glass
Sometimes a mirror that reflects 99.9999% of light isn’t good enough.
Ideal Glass Would Explain Why Glass Exists at All
Glass is anything that’s rigid like a crystal, yet made of disordered molecules like a liquid. To understand why it exists, researchers are attempting to create the perfect, still-hypothetical “ideal glass.”
Color-Changing Material Unites the Math and Physics of Knots
Mathematicians have studied knots for centuries, but a new material is showing why some knots are better than others.
Strange Metal-like Bonds Discovered in Customized Crystals
While studying materials made from DNA-coated nanoparticles, researchers found a new form of this matter: lattices in which smaller particles roam like electrons in metallic bonds.
Solution: Magic Moiré in Twisted Graphene
Answering these simple questions can give you an intuitive feel for the geometric properties behind the emergence of superconductivity in rotated graphene sheets.
How Swarming Insects Act Like Fluids
By studying a swarm of flying midges as though it were a fluid, physicists have learned how collective behaviors might stabilize a group against environmental disruptions.
When Magic Is Seen in Twisted Graphene, That’s a Moiré
What do moiré patterns seen in optics, art, photography and color printing have to do with superconducting layers of graphene?
What’s the Magic Behind Graphene’s ‘Magic’ Angle?
A new theoretical model may help explain the shocking onset of superconductivity in stacked, twisted carbon sheets.
With a Simple Twist, a ‘Magic’ Material Is Now the Big Thing in Physics
The stunning emergence of a new type of superconductivity with the mere twist of a carbon sheet has left physicists giddy, and its discoverer nearly overwhelmed.