In 1997, Alexei Kitaev, a theorist at the California Institute of Technology, pointed out that such quasiparticles could lay the perfect foundation for quantum computers. Physicists have long salivated at the possibility of harnessing the quantum world to perform calculations … Read more
When your laptop or smartphone heats up, it’s due to energy that’s lost in translation. The same goes for power lines that transmit electricity between cities. In fact, around 10 percent of the generated energy is lost in the transmission … Read more
IceCube Collaboration/U.S. National Science Foundation (Lily Le & Shawn Johnson)/ESO (S. Brunier) The Milky Way Galaxy is made visible through emissions of optical frequencies of electromagnetic radiation – fleeting to the naked eye before – this magical phenomenon has now … Read more
A star is being consumed by a distant supermassive black hole. Astronomers call this a tidal disruption event (TDE). As the black hole rips apart the star, two jets of material moving with almost the speed of light are launched … Read more
I’ve had a hard time getting published on Scientific American lately, so I’m posting this column here on my personal website. –John Horgan By now, you might have heard that physicists have created a wormhole, which heretofore has existed, … Read more
To see why isometry solves the problem, Cotler describes a toy universe, one born in one of two possible initial states, 0 or 1 (a two-dimensional Hilbert space). He makes up an isometric rule to govern this universe’s expansion: At … Read more
Though they are discrete particles, water molecules flow collectively as liquids, producing streams, waves, whirlpools, and other classic fluid phenomena. Not so with electricity. While an electric current is also a construct of distinct particles — in this case, electrons … Read more
MIT physicists have established twisted graphene as a new “family” of robust superconductors, each member consisting of alternating graphene layers, stacked at precise angles. Credit: Courtesy of the researchers When it comes to graphene, it appears that superconductivity runs in … Read more
When it comes to graphene, it appears that superconductivity runs in the family. Graphene is a single-atom-thin material that can be exfoliated from the same graphite that is found in pencil lead. The ultrathin material is made entirely from carbon … Read more
