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physicsmagazine.bsky.social
Physics Magazine
@physicsmagazine.bsky.social
6.6K followers 160 following 680 posts
Reporting advances in physics research.
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physicsmagazine.bsky.social
Researchers have built and studied a tiny engine in the form of a levitated glass microparticle. The engine’s counterintuitive thermodynamics may help explain the nonequilibrium behavior of various biological systems. physics.aps.org/articles/v18...
November 19, 2025 at 8:16 PM
physicsmagazine.bsky.social
Researchers have analyzed a hypothetical scenario in which three Cooper pairs tunnel simultaneously in a four-terminal Josephson junction. Such a process is important because it could facilitate new functionalities in quantum technologies. physics.aps.org/articles/v18...
November 19, 2025 at 7:34 PM
physicsmagazine.bsky.social
The extent of a particle’s wave function depends on the particle’s mass and environment. Researchers have developed an optical method that sheds light on this dependence for single hydrogen and deuterium molecules trapped in a superfluid helium nanodroplet. physics.aps.org/articles/v18...
November 18, 2025 at 6:41 PM
physicsmagazine.bsky.social
Researchers have determined the entropy of a double quantum dot by measuring how much energy is needed to pack in an additional electron. Their method could be used to determine quantities that are even harder to measure, such as exotic quasiparticle couplings.
November 17, 2025 at 8:56 PM
physicsmagazine.bsky.social
Quantum magic is a property of certain quantum states that enables operations outside the fault-tolerant, classically accessible set. Last year two theorists answered the long-standing question of how to reliably measure this important property.
November 17, 2025 at 7:33 PM
physicsmagazine.bsky.social
Theorists have analyzed the case of a small emitter subjected to a periodic light field. Under the right circumstances, the emitter produces negative radiated power, a counterintuitive effect that defies the traditional concept of light emission.
September 22, 2025 at 4:54 PM
physicsmagazine.bsky.social
Researchers have used AI to help move thousands of trapped, cold atoms into any arrangement in just 60 milliseconds. To demonstrate that ability, they created an animation of Schrödinger’s cat.
August 13, 2025 at 2:29 PM
physicsmagazine.bsky.social
Stem cells in an early-stage mammalian embryo develop into two types that need to segregate. Experiments now suggest that the stiffnesses of the two cell types are key. The results may improve researchers’ understanding of embryo development and tumor progression.
April 28, 2025 at 1:50 PM
physicsmagazine.bsky.social
Fermilab's Diktys Stratakis reviews the prospects for building a ring-shaped particle accelerator that smashes muons together. Muons are 200 times as heavy as electrons, so they radiate much less energy-sapping synchrotron radiation.
April 25, 2025 at 4:55 PM
physicsmagazine.bsky.social
Just announced: This year's physics Nobel will go to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton. Both are pioneers in neural networks, which are a crucial ingredient for understanding human intelligence and for building artificial intelligences.
October 8, 2024 at 9:57 AM
physicsmagazine.bsky.social
Calculations show that a doughnut-shaped Universe isn’t ruled out by cosmic observations. Story by @csrday.bsky.social. 🧪 ⚛️

physics.aps.org/articles/v17...
An infinite array of lines intersecting at right angles in all directions, like an infinite jungle gym.
April 26, 2024 at 3:04 PM
physicsmagazine.bsky.social
Rechargeable batteries are critical for the transition to renewable energy. Products powered by sodium-ion batteries are starting to hit the market as potentially more sustainable alternatives to the usual lithium-based batteries.

physics.aps.org/articles/v17...
A photograph of a sodium-ion battery on a pile of salt. The battery is grey and the background of the image is black.
April 26, 2024 at 1:32 PM
physicsmagazine.bsky.social
Real-time in situ x-ray observations of new nickel-rich lithium-ion batteries reveal that reduced performance comes from lithium ions getting trapped in the cathode. 🌏
#EarthWeek 🧪 ⚛️'

physics.aps.org/articles/v17...
Schematic illustration of the inside of a battery.
April 23, 2024 at 3:40 PM
physicsmagazine.bsky.social
This #EarthWeek @physicsmagazine.bsky.social explores issues related to sustainable battery technologies. First up an interview with Paul Kempler about a new hands-on electrochemistry course that can be done in just over a year (no 5-yr-long PhD needed). 🧪 ⚛️ 🌏

physics.aps.org/articles/v17...
A photograph of a white man with a short dark brown hair and a beard. The background contains a multitude of floating green-colored batteries.
April 22, 2024 at 6:46 PM
physicsmagazine.bsky.social
Using thin layers of chiral nematic liquid crystals, researchers have observed the formation of skyrmions. 🧪 ⚛️

physics.aps.org/articles/v17...
Sequential photographs of a skyrmion forming.
April 22, 2024 at 5:14 PM
physicsmagazine.bsky.social
Rainforests seem to be self-organized into a critical state that may optimize their resilience. 🧪⚛️

physics.aps.org/articles/v17...
Photo of a dense rainforest
April 19, 2024 at 4:19 PM
physicsmagazine.bsky.social
A glass studio becomes a physics lab for biophysicists examining the physiological tissue properties of marine microorganisms. #SciArt 🧪 ⚛️

physics.aps.org/articles/v17...
Glass models of the marine animal Trichoplax, made by assembling multiple “cells” in a disk-shaped mold.
April 12, 2024 at 3:47 PM
physicsmagazine.bsky.social
Single-photon “light bullets” that can travel in space and time without spreading out could have applications in fields from microscopy to cryptography. 🧪 ⚛️

physics.aps.org/articles/v17...
A combined Airy pattern and noise surface without and with coincidence detection.
April 3, 2024 at 5:22 PM
physicsmagazine.bsky.social
David Kaplan has developed a method for simulating particles that come in left- and right-handed versions on a lattice, a problem that has proven difficult to solve. 🧪⚛️

physics.aps.org/articles/v17...
A white man with grey hair and a beard standing in front of a white board covered in graphs.
April 3, 2024 at 1:32 PM
physicsmagazine.bsky.social
Researchers have designed a molecular motor that works by clipping amino acids in peptide segments. When placed on a lawn-like surface covered with peptides, the motor moves in the direction of uncut “grass.” 🧪 ⚛️🔬👩‍🔬

physics.aps.org/articles/v17...
A graphic showing a sphere rolling over a surface covered with green cones. A closeup shows that the sphere is covered with Pac-Man-like enzymes that bind to and cut off the cone-shaped tips of peptides bound to the surface.
March 14, 2024 at 3:31 PM
physicsmagazine.bsky.social
A @physicsmagazine.bsky.social editor has been seen in the wild (@katrwright.bsky.social visiting Princeton Plasma Physical Laboratory for the opening of the Quantum Diamond Lab). Credit: Michael Livingston, PPPL. ⚛️
A woman in safety spectacles is looking at a thin-film of diamond growing.
March 13, 2024 at 3:47 PM
physicsmagazine.bsky.social
The winners of the 3rd annual “Gallery of Soft Matter” competition included posters portraying robotic leaves & cannibalizing droplets & a video with what might be Steamboat Willie’s first appearance @apsphysics.bsky.social March Meeting. (Story has the videos).

physics.aps.org/articles/v17...
Images of plant-cell-inspired actuators (left) and fiber-laden droplets (right) featured on winning posters of this year’s Gallery of Soft Matter.
March 8, 2024 at 6:09 PM
physicsmagazine.bsky.social
Certain phenomena, such as topological phases, are related to a geometrical representation of the electronic wavefunction. This so-called quantum geometry is also behind a newly observed quantum Hall effect. 🧪⚛️

physics.aps.org/articles/v17...
A schematic showing a block of material with two arrows representing the electric and magnetic fields. A third arrow depicts the induced Hall current.
March 6, 2024 at 6:13 PM
physicsmagazine.bsky.social
When molecules collide in the deep cold of interstellar space, they may behave very differently than room-temperature molecules because of quantum effects. 🧪 ⚛️🔭

physics.aps.org/articles/v17...
A reconstruction of the flame nebula.
March 1, 2024 at 5:04 PM
physicsmagazine.bsky.social
Kamal Kesour conducts measurements to identify the sources of noise coming from ships passing through the St. Lawrence Estuary in Quebec, Canada. His goal is to find ways to reduce underwater noise, which can impact marine life. 🧪 ⚛️🌏 

physics.aps.org/articles/v17...
A photograph of a bearded man wearing a white hard hat. He is standing aboard a large shipping vessel as it sails along the St. Lawrence Estuary in Quebec, Canada.
February 29, 2024 at 7:35 PM