Physics – 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 Search for What Shook the Earth for Nine Days Straight https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-did-a-landslide-shake-the-earth-for-nine-days-20240912/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-did-a-landslide-shake-the-earth-for-nine-days-20240912/#respond Thu, 12 Sep 2024 18:00:39 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=140655 The post The Search for What Shook the Earth for Nine Days Straight first appeared on Quanta Magazine

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On September 16, 2023, the world began to rumble. A gargantuan rock-ice avalanche tumbled into the deep waters of a fjord in eastern Greenland, unleashing a megatsunami whose initial waves reached a height of 200 meters. The waves scoured the walls of the fjord before flowing into the open sea. Even for this avalanche-prone corner of Greenland, the collapse and subsequent megatsunami were shocking...

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Can Thermodynamics Go Quantum? https://www.quantamagazine.org/can-thermodynamics-go-quantum-20240912/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/can-thermodynamics-go-quantum-20240912/#respond Thu, 12 Sep 2024 13:43:17 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=140647 The post Can Thermodynamics Go Quantum? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

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The principles of thermodynamics are cornerstones of our understanding of physics. But they were discovered in the era of steam-driven technology, long before anyone dreamed of quantum mechanics. In this episode, the theoretical physicist Nicole Yunger Halpern talks to host Steven Strogatz about how physicists today are reinterpreting concepts such as work, energy and information for a quantum...

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The First Nuclear Clock Will Test if Fundamental Constants Change https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-first-nuclear-clock-will-test-if-fundamental-constants-change-20240904/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-first-nuclear-clock-will-test-if-fundamental-constants-change-20240904/#respond Wed, 04 Sep 2024 15:02:43 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=140311 The post The First Nuclear Clock Will Test if Fundamental Constants Change first appeared on Quanta Magazine

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At 11:30 one night in May 2024, a graduate student, Chuankun Zhang, saw a signal that physicists have sought for 50 years. As a peak rose from the static on his monitor at the research institute JILA in Boulder, Colorado, Zhang dropped a screenshot in a group chat with his three lab mates. One by one they hopped out of bed and trickled in. After several sanity checks to make sure that what they...

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How the Higgs Field (Actually) Gives Mass to Elementary Particles https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-the-higgs-field-actually-gives-mass-to-elementary-particles-20240903/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-the-higgs-field-actually-gives-mass-to-elementary-particles-20240903/#respond Tue, 03 Sep 2024 13:53:06 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=140239 The post How the Higgs Field (Actually) Gives Mass to Elementary Particles first appeared on Quanta Magazine

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The discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider in 2012 confirmed what we particle physicists had long suspected: that there is a field permeating the cosmos that generates the masses of elementary particles. Unfortunately, physicists have found it challenging to explain to everyone else how this so-called Higgs field accomplishes its mighty task. A common approach has been to tell a...

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Do We Need a New Theory of Gravity? https://www.quantamagazine.org/do-we-need-a-new-theory-of-gravity-20240829/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/do-we-need-a-new-theory-of-gravity-20240829/#respond Thu, 29 Aug 2024 13:35:49 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=140166 The post Do We Need a New Theory of Gravity? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

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Observations of the cosmos suggest that unseen sources of gravity — dark matter — tug at the stars in galaxies, while another mysterious force — dark energy — drives the universe to expand at an ever-increasing rate. The evidence for both of them, however, hinges on assumptions that gravity works the same way at all scales. What if that’s not true? In this episode, theoretical physicist Claudia de...

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