Near a black hole, gravity changes a quantum circuit's readings, not its rules

Imagine holding one of our most precise quantum devices at a fixed position outside a black hole. A Josephson junction—two ...

20 Years in the Making: Physicists Confirm Long-Standing Quantum Prediction

ISTA physicists have confirmed a theory proposed 20 years ago that could advance quantum technology.
Quanta Magazine

Diminishing Dark Energy May Evade the ‘Swampland’ of Impossible Universes

The largest-ever 3D map of the cosmos hints that the dark energy that’s fueling the universe’s expansion may be weakening. One community of theoretical physicists expected as much. On the morning of ...
C&EN

Gilbert Damping Modulated by the Exchange Spring Effect in IrMn/CoFe Bilayers

Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Ultra-Precision Optical Manufacturing, Laboratory of Micro and Nano Photonic Structures (MOE), Department of Optical Science and Engineering, Fudan University, ...
PNAS

A minimal physics-based model for musical perception

Why do some people hear music better than others? This incredibly complex question requires an integration of multiple disciplines ranging from sociology, neurology to physics. We attempt to provide a ...
C&EN

Tensile Creep Failure of Isotactic Polypropylene under the Strain Criterion

National-certified Enterprise Technology Center, Kingfa Science and Technology Co., Ltd., No.33, Kefeng Road, Science City, Guangzhou510663, P. R. China State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and ...
Nature

Standard model of particle physics tested by the fine-structure constant

Holger Müller is in the Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, USA. However, the recoil energy is tiny and therefore hard to measure. Laser-based ...
Scientific American

Make Your Own Spring Scale

Introduction Have you ever played with a Slinky, used a pinball machine, written with a click pen or ridden in a car? If so, then you have made use of a spring! Springs are in machines all around us ...
SciELO

Viscoelastic Relaxation Modulus Characterization Using Prony Series

The mechanical behavior of viscoelastic materials is influenced, among other factors, by parameters like time and temperature. The present paper proposes a methodology for a thermorheologically and ...
Wired

Do Rubber Bands Act Like Springs?

I blame Destin and his interesting sling shot video. Watch it. In this video, he claims that rubber bands do not act like springs. By "acting like springs" of course he means Hooke's law. This ...
PNAS

Intrinsic single-domain switching in ferroelectric materials on a nearly ideal surface

Ferroelectric domain nucleation and growth in multiferroic BiFeO 3 is studied on a single-domain level by using piezoresponse force spectroscopy. Variation of local electromechanical response with dc ...