Your faithful companion sees the world differently than you do, but it’s a mistake to assume dogs only see black, white and shades of grey.
Researchers can use mirrorlike beam splitters to put phonons, or quantum sound particles, into a state of superposition.
Peter Allen via University of Chicago
A small add-on to existing gravitational wave detectors could reveal what happens to matter as it becomes a black hole, a process like the big bang in reverse.
Lasers create colorful light shows at concerts, are used by doctors in surgeries – and are used in scientific laboratories.
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Astronomers are now able to detect a host of signals streaming through the universe. This newfound ability is like gaining new senses and it’s opening the door to understanding the cosmos.
How does our world work on a subatomic level?
Varsha Y S
A particle physicist explains just what this keystone theory includes. After 50 years, it’s the best we’ve got to answer what everything in the universe is made of and how it all holds together.
The famous cosmologist was closely identified with black holes due to his revolutionary theoretical work explaining some of their mysterious properties.
Diatoms - like those seen under a microscope here - can teach us a lot about harvesting light.
Rattiya Thongdumhyu/Shutterstock
As electronic transistors get tinier, they approach a point at which they won’t be able to get smaller. How can we keep shrinking our devices, and making them more powerful at the same time? Light.
A visualisation of simulation data showing light successfully trapped at a standstill.
Freezing light in mid-air isn’t just the realm of Star Wars, as new research shows. But what do you do with the light once it’s trapped? One option is to use it to develop new forms of computers.
Nanophotonics uses photons to do amazing things.
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Nanophotonics deals with photons at the nanometre scale, and it’s set to transform everything from internet speeds to turning your smartphone into a portable science lab.
Every day stuff for supernovae.
Santitep Mongkolsin/Shutterstock
In 1934, two physicists came up with a theory that described how to create matter from pure light. But they dismissed the idea of ever observing such a phenomenon in the laboratory because of the difficulties…
Quantum mechanics, which aims to describe the nano-scale world around us, has already led to the development of many technologies ubiquitous in modern life, including broadband optical fibre communication…
Thanks to two studies published in Nature last Thursday, the chance of successful teleportation has considerably increased. Which is a good thing, right? Whether or not you’ve ever been on a long-haul…