A team of scientists at North Carolina State University has demonstrated that a gallium-based liquid metal alloy forms snowflake-like fractal patterns when electrochemically oxidized. The results appear in the journal Physical Review Letters. Gallium indium forms fractal patterns with the application of low voltage. Image credit: North Carolina State University. …
Read More »CERN Antimatter Experiment Suggest the Universe Shouldn’t Exist
One of the big questions in science is not just “why are we here?’ It’s, “why is anything here?” Scientists at CERN have been looking into this one over the last several years, and there’s still no good answer. In fact, the latest experiment from physicists working at the Swiss …
Read More »CERN’s BASE Experiment Reports 350-Fold Improved Measurement of Antiproton’s Magnetic Moment
In a paper published this week in the journal Nature, the BASE collaboration at CERN reports the most precise measurement ever made of the magnetic moment of the antiproton. The new measurement outperforms the previous best measurement by a factor of 350 in experimental precision. Artist’s impression of a cloud …
Read More »Programmable Liquid Matter: Researchers Find Way to Morph Liquid Metal into Physical Shapes
University of Sussex researcher Yutaka Tokuda and co-authors have applied electrical charges to manipulate liquid metal into 2D shapes such as letters and a heart. The findings, reported at the 2017 ACM International Conference on Interactive Surfaces and Spaces in Brighton, the United Kingdom, represent an ‘extremely promising’ new class …
Read More »New Theory Explains Why Our Universe is Three-Dimensional
According to a new theory proposed by University of Edinburgh Professor Arjun Berera and colleagues, shortly after the Universe came into existence it was filled with ‘knots’ formed from flexible strands of energy called flux tubes that link elementary particles together. This is a graphic depicting formation of flux tube …
Read More »Scientists Detect Gravitational Waves from Colliding Neutron Stars
The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, and their partners have directly detected gravitational waves — ripples in space and time — from a pair of inspiraling neutron stars. Named GW170817, the event was not only ‘heard’ in gravitational waves but also seen in light by dozens of space- and ground-based …
Read More »Periodic Table’s Heaviest Elements Alter Theory of Quantum Mechanics
An international team of chemists led by Florida State University researchers has found that the theory of quantum mechanics does not adequately explain how the last 21 elements of the periodic table function. Instead, another well-known scientific theory — Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity — helps govern the behavior of …
Read More »Discovery of Gravitational Waves Wins 3 US Scientists Nobel Prize
In 1916, the famed theoretical physicist Albert Einstein postulated certain events in the universe would produce gravitational waves. The detection of such waves would be even more confirmation of general relativity, but Einstein suspected the waves would be too faint to be detected on Earth. Now, 100 years later, three …
Read More »Physicists Catch Fourth Gravitational Wave: GW170814
The LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo Collaboration report the first joint detection of gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of space and time, first predicted by Albert Einstein more than a century ago. This is the fourth announced detection of a signal from two black holes in their final …
Read More »Scientists Design New Form of Aluminum That Floats
Aluminum is probably one of the most familiar metals in the modern world thanks to its usage in everything from smartphones to aluminum foil. Aluminum is so commonly used because it has a low melting point, works well in alloys, and is relatively light compared with its overall strength. What if …
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