Physics News, Interviews and Columns | Quanta Magazine
Quanta’s award-winning coverage of astrophysics, cosmology, quantum physics, geophysics, condensed matter, statistical mechanics, chaos theory…
How Earth’s Climate Changes Naturally (and Why Things Are …
Jul 21, 2020 · Faint Young Sun. Magnitude: No net temperature effect. Time frame: Constant. Though the sun’s brightness fluctuates on shorter timescales, it brightens overall by 0.009% per million years, and it has brightened by 48% since the birth of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago.. Scientists reason that the faintness of the young sun should have meant that Earth remained frozen solid for the ...
A New Map of All the Particles and Forces | Quanta Magazine
Oct 22, 2020 · This approach doesn’t offer insight into the relationships between the particles. The force-carrying particles (namely the photon, which conveys the electromagnetic force; the W and Z bosons, which convey the weak force; and the gluons, which convey the strong force) are put on the same footing as the matter particles those forces act …
The Mystery at the Heart of Physics That Only Math Can Solve
Jun 10, 2021 · Over the past century, quantum field theory has proved to be the single most sweeping and successful physical theory ever invented. It is an umbrella term that encompasses many specific quantum field theories — the way “shape” …
How Gödel’s Proof Works - Quanta Magazine
Jul 14, 2020 · In 1931, the Austrian logician Kurt Gödel pulled off arguably one of the most stunning intellectual achievements in history. Mathematicians of the era sought a solid foundation for mathematics: a set of basic mathematical facts, or axioms, that was both consistent — never leading to contradictions — and complete, serving as …
How the Physics of Resonance Shapes Reality | Quanta Magazine
Jan 26, 2022 · Almost anytime physicists announce that they’ve discovered a new particle, whether it’s the Higgs boson or the recently bagged double-charm tetraquark, what they’ve actually spotted is a small bump rising from an otherwise smooth curve on a plot.Such a bump is the unmistakable signature of “resonance,” one of the most ubiquitous phenomena in nature.
How Bell’s Theorem Proved ‘Spooky Action at a Distance’ Is Real
Jul 20, 2021 · Here’s how Bell’s theorem showed that “spooky action at a distance” is real. Ups and Downs. The “spooky action” that bothered Einstein involves a quantum phenomenon known as entanglement, in which two particles that we would normally think of as distinct entities lose their independence.
How the Physics of Nothing Underlies Everything
Aug 9, 2022 · “We’re learning there’s a lot more to learn about nothing than we thought,” said Isabel Garcia Garcia, a particle physicist at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in California.“How much more are we missing?” So far, such studies have led to a dramatic conclusion: Our universe may sit on a platform of shoddy construction, a “metastable” vacuum that is doomed — in the ...
Physicists Use Quantum Mechanics to Pull Energy out of Nothing
Feb 22, 2023 · The quantum energy teleportation protocol was proposed in 2008 and largely ignored. Now two independent experiments have shown that it works.
The Most Famous Paradox in Physics Nears Its End
Oct 29, 2020 · In a series of breakthrough papers, theoretical physicists have come tantalizingly close to resolving the black hole information paradox that has entranced and bedeviled them for nearly 50 years. Information, they now say with confidence, does escape a black hole.