Imagine cooling a liquid so fast it turns into glass: a solid that’s jumbled inside, unlike neat crystal lattices. In 1948, Walter Kauzmann noticed a puzzle. As liquids cool, their entropy (a measure of disorder) drops faster than in crystals. Below a certain temperature, a supercooled liquid would have less entropy than the crystal, implying […]
Traditional chemistry textbooks present a tidy picture: Atoms in molecules occupy fixed positions, connected by rigid rods. A molecule such as formic acid (methanoic acid, HCOOH) is imagined as two-dimensional—flat as a sheet of paper. But quantum physics tells a different story. In reality, nature resists rigidity and forces even the simplest structures into the […]
Author: Florian Neukart, Assistant professor of Physics, Leiden University Time feels like the most basic feature of reality. Seconds tick, days pass and everything from planetary motion to human memory seems to unfold along a single, irreversible direction. We are born and we die, in exactly that order. We plan our lives around time, measure […]
A Radio-Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ) is a resonant cavity with a cylindrical symmetry divided in four lobes resembling a clover-like geometry and four vanes to focus and accelerate charged particles. This structure can accept a continuous flow of low-energy massive particles (such as protons or heavier ions) and accelerate them from the keV to the MeV […]
Author: Marika Taylor, Pro-vice-chancellor, Professor, University of Birmingham In 1980, Stephen Hawking gave his first lecture as Lucasian Professor at the University of Cambridge. The lecture was called “Is the end in sight for theoretical physics?” Hawking, who later became my PhD supervisor, predicted that a theory of everything – uniting the clashing branches of […]
Author: Knut von Salzen, Senior Research Scientist, Marine Cloud Brightening Research Program, University of Washington Winter is setting in across the Northern Hemisphere, and with it, cold and cloudy winter days. Clouds play a vital role in the environment, providing rain but also reflecting sunlight before it reaches the Earth’s surface. But between 2003 and […]
From the burning of wood to the action of medicines, the properties and behavior of matter are governed by the way chemical elements bond with one another. For many of the 118 known elements, the intricate electronic structures of the atoms that are responsible for chemical bonding are well understood. But for the superheavy elements […]
Author: Rohini Subrahmanyam is a PhD biologist turned science journalist. Insects that tuck away wings; a protist with an accordion-like neck — studying these clever creases may inspire foldable structures for drones As the microscopic, tear-shaped Lacrymaria olor swims around hunting for food, it does something remarkable: In a blink, the tiny protist extends its […]
At first glance, molecules seem too small and too chaotic to be controlled with light. Their atoms jiggle ceaselessly, driven by thermal energy, and their vibrations—tiny oscillations of chemical bonds—usually remain hidden in the background. But recent work has shown that we can, in fact, use light not only to measure these vibrations but also […]
Author: Daryl Janzen, Observatory Manager and Instructor, Astronomy, University of Saskatchewan Few ideas in modern science have reshaped our understanding of reality more profoundly than space-time — the interwoven fabric of space and time at the heart of Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. Space-time is frequently described as the “fabric of reality.” In some accounts […]