Matter & Energy/Physics

Bubbles for Batavia —Use by visitors is expected to be especially large at the National Accelerator Laboratory now under construction at Batavia, Ill.... NAL staff and consultants agree that the laboratory will need a large bubble chamber, and it now plans to build one in collaboration with Brookhaven National Laboratory. — Science News. August 16, 1969  Update…

It’s a moonless night. The wind howls outside. A door opens slowly, as if pushed by an invisible hand. “Cre-e-e-a-k.” That sound — a horror movie cliché — is the result of friction. A stealthier entrance calls for oiling the door’s hinges. Friction is everywhere — from a violinist bowing a string to children skidding down…

Physicists are taking their quantum powers to the next level — the next energy level, that is. Researchers have controlled the motion of a trapped ion, an electrically charged atom, better than ever possible before, manipulating the energy level of its oscillation within an electromagnetic field. A single ion of beryllium, trapped by electromagnetic fields,…

The rules about what makes a good magnet may not be as rigid as scientists thought. Using a mixture containing magnetic nanoparticles, researchers have now created liquid droplets that behave like tiny bar magnets.   Magnets that generate persistent magnetic fields typically are composed of solids like iron, where the magnetic poles of densely packed…

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — It’s one of the most talked-about issues in physics: Two measurements of the universe’s expansion rate disagree. Now, a technique that aimed to resolve the mismatch has produced a third estimate that falls between the previous two. So the controversy endures, scientists report in a study accepted in the Astrophysical Journal. …

Perfect crepe-making is all in the wrist, according to physics. Using a computer simulation, two fluid dynamics researchers have devised a step-by-step guide for preparing perfectly flat crepes. Their strategy, described in the June Physical Review Fluids, involves tilting and rotating the frying pan in circles. Besides making picture-perfect pancakes, this technique might be useful…

The mysterious cube arrived in the summer of 2013. Physicist Timothy Koeth had agreed to go to a parking lot for an unspecified delivery. Inside a blue cloth sack, swathed in paper towels, he found a small chunk of uranium. It was about 5 centimeters across, with “a white piece of paper wrapped around it,…

The ticktock of two ultraprecise clocks has proven Einstein right, once again. A pair of atomic clocks made of single ions of ytterbium kept pace with one another over six months, scientists report March 13 in Nature. The timepieces’ reliability supports a principle known as Lorentz symmetry. That principle was the foundation for Einstein’s special…

BOSTON — ­Today’s nanoelectronics weather forecast: positively frigid. Tiny electronic chips have been cooled to a record low temperature, dipping below a thousandth of a kelvin for the first time ever, scientists reported March 6 at a meeting of the American Physical Society. To reach the frosty temperature, the scientists incorporated tiny bits of metal…

Here’s a recipe for homemade plasma: Cut a grape in half, leaving the two sections connected at one end by the grape’s thin skin. Heat the fruit in a microwave for a few seconds. Then, boom: From the grape erupts a small plasma fireball — a hot mixture of electrons and electrically charged atoms, or…