phase transitions – Quanta Magazine https://www.quantamagazine.org Illuminating science Mon, 16 Sep 2024 14:10:47 -0400 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2 The Enduring Mystery of How Water Freezes https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-enduring-mystery-of-how-water-freezes-20240617/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-enduring-mystery-of-how-water-freezes-20240617/#respond Mon, 17 Jun 2024 14:15:32 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=138530 The post The Enduring Mystery of How Water Freezes first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> We learn in grade school that water freezes at zero degrees Celsius, but that’s seldom true. In clouds, scientists have found supercooled water droplets as chilly as minus 40 C, and in a lab in 2014, they cooled water to a staggering minus 46 C before it froze. You can supercool water at home: Throw a bottle of distilled water in your freezer, and it’s unlikely to crystallize until you shake it.

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-enduring-mystery-of-how-water-freezes-20240617/feed/ 0 Will Better Superconductors Transform the World? https://www.quantamagazine.org/will-better-superconductors-transform-the-world-20240509/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/will-better-superconductors-transform-the-world-20240509/#respond Thu, 09 May 2024 13:03:57 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=137831 The post Will Better Superconductors Transform the World? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> If superconductors — materials that conduct electricity without any resistance — worked at temperatures and pressures close to what we would consider normal, they would be world-changing. They could dramatically amplify power grids, levitate high-speed trains and enable more affordable medical technologies. For more than a century, physicists have tinkered with different compounds and...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/will-better-superconductors-transform-the-world-20240509/feed/ 0 A Quantum Trick Implied Eternal Stability. Now the Idea May Be Falling Apart. https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-quantum-trick-implied-eternal-stability-now-its-falling-apart-20240226/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-quantum-trick-implied-eternal-stability-now-its-falling-apart-20240226/#respond Mon, 26 Feb 2024 15:35:43 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=135717 The post A Quantum Trick Implied Eternal Stability. Now the Idea May Be Falling Apart. first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> It is a truth of both physics and everyday experience that things fall apart. Ice melts. Buildings crumble. Any object, if you wait long enough, gets mixed up with itself and its surroundings beyond recognition. But beginning in 2005, a series of breakthroughs made this death march seem optional. In just the right quantum setting, any arrangement of electrons or atoms would stay put for all...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-quantum-trick-implied-eternal-stability-now-its-falling-apart-20240226/feed/ 0 Maze Proof Establishes a ‘Backbone’ for Statistical Mechanics https://www.quantamagazine.org/maze-proof-establishes-a-backbone-for-statistical-mechanics-20240207/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/maze-proof-establishes-a-backbone-for-statistical-mechanics-20240207/#respond Wed, 07 Feb 2024 16:12:53 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=135102 The post Maze Proof Establishes a ‘Backbone’ for Statistical Mechanics first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Imagine that a grid of hexagons, honeycomb-like, stretches before you. Some hexagons are empty; others are filled by a 6-foot tall column of solid concrete. The result is a maze of sorts. For over half a century, mathematicians have posed questions about such randomly generated mazes. How big is the largest web of cleared paths? What are the chances that there is a path from one edge to the center...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/maze-proof-establishes-a-backbone-for-statistical-mechanics-20240207/feed/ 0 Physicists Observe ‘Unobservable’ Quantum Phase Transition https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-observe-unobservable-quantum-phase-transition-20230911/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-observe-unobservable-quantum-phase-transition-20230911/#respond Mon, 11 Sep 2023 15:08:31 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=129933 The post Physicists Observe ‘Unobservable’ Quantum Phase Transition first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> In 1935, Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger, two of the most prominent physicists of the day, got into a dispute over the nature of reality. Einstein had done the math and knew that the universe must be local, meaning that no event in one location could instantly affect a distant location. But Schrödinger had done his own math, and he knew that at the heart of quantum mechanics lay a strange...

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