Physics – Quanta Magazine https://www.quantamagazine.org Illuminating science Fri, 21 Feb 2025 21:18:44 -0500 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.2 How Hans Bethe Stumbled Upon Perfect Quantum Theories https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-hans-bethe-stumbled-upon-perfect-quantum-theories-20250212/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-hans-bethe-stumbled-upon-perfect-quantum-theories-20250212/#respond Wed, 12 Feb 2025 14:55:38 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=146538 The post How Hans Bethe Stumbled Upon Perfect Quantum Theories first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> By 1928, quantum physicists seemed poised to unravel matter’s final secrets. The German researcher Walter Gordon had applied the emerging theory of quantum mechanics to the hydrogen atom, the universe’s simplest atom, and worked out exactly how it behaved. A mastery of all atoms seemed sure to follow. It did not. When quantum particles influence each other, their possibilities intertwine in such…

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-hans-bethe-stumbled-upon-perfect-quantum-theories-20250212/feed/ 0 How Noether’s Theorem Revolutionized Physics https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-noethers-theorem-revolutionized-physics-20250207/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-noethers-theorem-revolutionized-physics-20250207/#respond Fri, 07 Feb 2025 14:17:48 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=146386 The post How Noether’s Theorem Revolutionized Physics first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> In the fall of 1915, the foundations of physics began to crack. Einstein’s new theory of gravity seemed to imply that it should be possible to create and destroy energy, a result that threatened to upend two centuries of thinking in physics. Einstein’s theory, called general relativity, radically transformed the meaning of space and time. Rather than being fixed backdrops to the events of the…

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-noethers-theorem-revolutionized-physics-20250207/feed/ 0 Cosmologists Try a New Way to Measure the Shape of the Universe https://www.quantamagazine.org/cosmologists-try-a-new-way-to-measure-the-shape-of-the-universe-20250127/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/cosmologists-try-a-new-way-to-measure-the-shape-of-the-universe-20250127/#respond Mon, 27 Jan 2025 15:47:46 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=145986 The post Cosmologists Try a New Way to Measure the Shape of the Universe first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Is the universe infinite, Aristotle asked in 350 BCE, “or is this an impossibility? The decision … is … all-important to our search for the truth.” The Greek philosopher opined that “the heavens” (meaning the moon, planets, sun and other stars) travel around the Earth in circles, and that a “body which moves in a circle is not endless or infinite, but has its limit.” Moreover…

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/cosmologists-try-a-new-way-to-measure-the-shape-of-the-universe-20250127/feed/ 0 Heat Destroys All Order. Except for in This One Special Case. https://www.quantamagazine.org/heat-destroys-all-order-except-for-in-this-one-special-case-20250116/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/heat-destroys-all-order-except-for-in-this-one-special-case-20250116/#respond Thu, 16 Jan 2025 15:10:22 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=145670 The post Heat Destroys All Order. Except for in This One Special Case. first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Sunlight melts snowflakes. Fire turns logs into soot and smoke. A hot oven will make a magnet lose its pull. Physicists know from countless examples that if you crank the temperature high enough, structures and patterns break down. Now, though, they’ve cooked up a striking exception. In a string of results over the past few years, researchers have shown that an idealized substance resembling two…

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/heat-destroys-all-order-except-for-in-this-one-special-case-20250116/feed/ 0 The Physicist Decoding the Nonbinary Nature of the Subatomic World https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-physicist-decoding-the-nonbinary-nature-of-the-subatomic-world-20250110/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-physicist-decoding-the-nonbinary-nature-of-the-subatomic-world-20250110/#respond Fri, 10 Jan 2025 15:40:18 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=145493 The post The Physicist Decoding the Nonbinary Nature of the Subatomic World first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Many discoveries in physics flow from theory to experiment. Albert Einstein theorized that mass bends the fabric of space-time, and then Arthur Eddington observed the effects of this bending during a solar eclipse. Likewise, Peter Higgs first proposed the existence of the Higgs boson; nearly 50 years later, the particle was discovered at the Large Hadron Collider. Hadronization is different. It’…

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