New Atlas

Physics Audio available

CERN's proposed 100-km particle accelerator would run rings around the LHC

Darren Quick January 15, 2019

CERN, the European research organization responsible for operating the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), has released a report outlining a proposed particle accelerator that would be nearly four times as long and 10 times as powerful as its predecessor.

The proposed Future Circular Collider (FCC) would have a circumference of 100 km (62 mi), dwarfing ...

Physics

Dark matter and dark energy may really be one "dark fluid" with negative mass

Michael Irving December 5, 2018

An astrophysicist from Oxford has put forward a new theory that suggests that dark matter and dark energy are actually part of the same phenomenon: a “dark fluid” with negative mass that fills the universe.

A new theory suggests that the universe is filled with a dark fluid that has negative ...

Physics Audio available

Large Hadron Collider upgrades to pave the way for higher energy collisions

Nick Lavars December 4, 2018

Scientists at CERN have switched off the Large Hadron Collider following its second round of experiments, gearing it up for a third run that will see particles smashed together harder than ever before.

The Large Hadron Collider undergoes some earlier upgrades

Physics Audio available

Most powerful gravitational waves event stands out among four new detections

Michael Irving December 3, 2018

Gravitational waves are ripples in the very fabric of spacetime, caused by some of the biggest cataclysms in the cosmos. Now, an international team of scientists has presented the full catalog of these events, gathered over the last few years across two observation runs.

An artist's impression of two neutron stars on a collision course – a cataclysm that produces ...

Physics Audio available

Record-breaking atomic clocks precise enough to measure spacetime distortions

Michael Irving November 28, 2018

In recent tests run by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), experimental atomic clocks have achieved record performance in three metrics, meaning these clocks could help measure the Earth’s gravity more precisely or detect elusive dark matter.

A ytterbium lattice atomic clock, which was used in the new study to make some of ...

Physics Audio available

Scientists find way to melt gold at room temperature

Michael Irving November 20, 2018

Melting gold normally requires temperatures upwards of 1,064° C (1,947° F), but physics is never quite that simple. A team of researchers has now found a way to melt gold at room temperature using an electric field and an electron microscope.

Researchers have found a way to melt gold at room temperature

Physics

Does antimatter fall upwards? New CERN gravity experiments aim to get to the bottom of the matter

Michael Irving November 4, 2018

Physics tells us that a hammer and a feather, dropped in a vacuum, will fall at the same rate. Now, CERN scientists are preparing to drop antimatter in a vacuum chamber to see if gravity affects it the same way it does matter – or if antimatter falls upwards instead.

The ALPHA-g experiment being set up at CERN, which will drop antimatter to see how gravity ...

Physics

Atomic tractor beam traps atoms for quantum memory

Michael Irving October 30, 2018

The tractor beam is a long-time staple of sci-fi, but now Australian researchers have created a real-world version. While it won’t exactly be capturing enemy spaceships anytime soon, the device can use light to pull in and trap atoms, which may be handy for quantum communications or memory systems.

Lead researcher Philip Light with the chamber in which the tractor beams were created

Physics

"Tools made of light" earns laser pioneers the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics

Michael Irving October 2, 2018

The 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to three scientists: Arthur Ashkin for developing optical tweezers, and Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland, for designing a method to generate high-intensity, ultra-short laser pulses.

Physics

Can we use gravitational waves to detect hidden dimensions?

Michael Irving September 16, 2018

The universe as we know it is made up of three spatial dimensions, right? But some physics models suggest the existence of extra dimensions that we can’t perceive. In an effort to find evidence of these dimensions, researchers have studied gravitational waves and come up empty.

The collision of two neutron stars could help shed light on whether our universe is hiding ...