There is an up-and-coming set of technologies that uses the strange properties of atomic particles predicted by the theory of quantum mechanics, which is the physics of the very small stuff. This technology…
It’s mind-blowing stuff, but Einstein wasn’t completely convinced by quantum mechanics.
Travis Morgan/Flickr
Albert Einstein may be most famous for his mass-energy equivalence formula E = mc2, but his work also laid down the foundation for modern quantum mechanics. His analysis of the “spookiness” of quantum…
Frustrated by battery drain? A new superfast charger is still a couple of years off … but it’ll be more environmentally friendly than the toxic batteries we use today.
rpavich/Flickr
If you’re one of the thousands of smartphone users experiencing battery drain, you’d have been pleased to read that Tel Aviv-based start-up StoreDot recently unveiled a prototype charger that fully charges…
The massive release of the US National Security Agency (NSA)’s classified documents by Edward Snowden continues to raise questions about security. One of these documents deals with the NSA’s classified…
As Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary looms, time travel is everywhere – on the screen, at least. Famously, the Doctor can whizz through the years using a “dimensionally transcendental” machine, the TARDIS…
Quantum mechanics has been hailed as the next big thing in technology. And quantum computers are a media favourite. But there is a little-known quantum technology that can peer beneath the earth, which…
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…
We thought we knew the radius of the proton to within 0.8%. Perhaps not.
Ludie Cochrane/Flickr
Striving for agreement between theory and experiment and pushing the boundaries of precision are important parts of the scientific process. With each step in this process we move closer to enlightenment…
Sometimes the juiciest treats come in small packages.
Dylan Parker
Most people outside the esoteric worlds of little-science physics (aka quantum mechanics) and big-science physics (aka cosmology) will at some point realise both worlds fly in the face of intuition. Why…
Transistors have continued shrinking, but how much further can they go?
Jenn and Tony Bot
It’s early morning, you’re preparing for the day ahead and thinking about life’s important conundrums. Is there enough muesli left for the week? Do you have enough time to catch the bus? Are you going…
When you shine a torch into a dusty room, not all the photons reach their destination.
Simon Greig (xrrr)
All of the light we see around us comes in chunks of energy known as photons. As well as making up light, photons can be used to carry and process information and their quantum properties make possible…
A cat, or the superposition of an inordinate number of wave functions?
Blind Hen ⁑ Blind Höna
Whenever I see angry mobs reacting to the destruction of religious books it makes me think of Schrödinger, iPads and how we should interpret fundamentalist religious teachings in the digital era. The brilliant…
Can you play a quantum game of tennis with just one court and one ball?
Javmorcas
You may have heard that this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Serge Haroche (from College de France) and David J. Wineland (from the US National Institute of Standards and Technology…
No matter which way you look at it, you can’t find out everything.
The Uncertainty Principle, introduced by Heisenberg in 1927, applies to observations of the properties of the quantum world, which is typically microscopic in scale. As I explained a few months ago, it…
“Most people just get used to the concept and get on with their lives.”
Roger McLassus
Our notion of reality is built on everyday experiences. But wave-particle duality is so strange that we are forced to re-examine our common conceptions. Wave-particle duality refers to the fundamental…
Developments on the atomic scale are set to open a whole new world of problem solving.
~jjjohn~
Supercomputers have enabled breakthroughs in our ability to tackle a huge array of problems, from detailed studies of protein folding, to the dynamics of the Earth’s atmosphere and climate. Current research…