The Mystery at the Heart of Physics That Only Math Can Solve
WEBJun 10, 2021 · The accelerating effort to understand the mathematics of quantum field theory will have profound consequences for both math and physics. Olena Shmahalo/Quanta Magazine. 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 ...
A New Map of All the Particles and Forces | Quanta Magazine
WEBOct 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 between — quarks, electrons and their kin.
How Earth’s Climate Changes Naturally (and Why Things Are …
WEBJul 21, 2020 · Earth’s climate has fluctuated through deep time, pushed by these 10 different causes. Here’s how each compares with modern climate change. Orbital wobbles, plate tectonics, evolutionary changes and other factors have sent the planet in and out of ice ages. Pablo A. Cumillaf. Earth has been a snowball and a …
What Is a Particle? - Quanta Magazine
WEBNov 12, 2020 · A Particle Is a ‘Collapsed Wave Function’ 1. The quest to understand nature’s fundamental building blocks began with the ancient Greek philosopher Democritus’s assertion that such things exist. Two millennia later, Isaac Newton and Christiaan Huygens debated whether light is made of particles or waves.
Physicists Use Quantum Mechanics to Pull Energy out of Nothing
WEBFeb 22, 2023 · The new quantum protocol effectively borrows energy from a distant location and thus violates no sacred physical principles. Kristina Armitage/ Quanta Magazine. For their latest magic trick, physicists have done the quantum equivalent of conjuring energy out of thin air. It’s a feat that seems to fly in the face of physical law and common sense.
Mathematician Proves Huge Result on ‘Dangerous’ Problem
WEBDec 11, 2019 · Lothar Collatz likely posed the eponymous conjecture in the 1930s. The problem sounds like a party trick. Pick a number, any number. If it’s odd, multiply it by 3 and add 1. If it’s even, divide it by 2. Now you have a new number. Apply the same rules to the new number. The conjecture is about what happens as you keep repeating the process.
Quantum Tunnels Show How Particles Can Break the Speed of Light
WEBOct 20, 2020 · The trouble was that the answer didn’t make sense. The first tentative calculation of tunneling time appeared in print in 1932. Even earlier stabs might have been made in private, but “when you get an answer you can’t make sense of, you don’t publish it,” noted Aephraim Steinberg, a physicist at the University of Toronto.. It wasn’t until 1962 that a semiconductor engineer at Texas ...
A Mathematician’s Guided Tour Through High Dimensions
WEBSep 13, 2021 · The formal study of higher dimensions emerged in the 19th century and became quite sophisticated within decades: A 1911 bibliography contained 1,832 references to the geometry of n dimensions. Perhaps as a consequence, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the public became infatuated with the fourth dimension.
The Most Famous Paradox in Physics Nears Its End
WEBOct 29, 2020 · The work appears to resolve a paradox that Stephen Hawking first described five decades ago. Ashley Mackenzie for Quanta Magazine. 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.
Does Hot Water Freeze Faster Than Cold? Physicists Keep Asking ...
WEBJun 29, 2022 · Or perhaps external factors come into play: A layer of frost in a freezer can act as an insulator, keeping heat from leaking out of a cold cup, whereas a hot cup will melt the frost and cool faster. Those explanations all assume that the effect is real — that hot water really does freeze faster than cold. But not everyone is convinced.