Subatomic particles such as quarks can pair up when linked by ‘strings’ of force fields — and release energy when the strings are pulled to the point of breaking. Two teams of physicists have now used ...

One of the central tasks of physics is to understand how various materials possess certain properties such as electrical, optical, thermal, or magnetic properties. These properties underlie all ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. On a quiet pandemic afternoon in 2021, Zhiyuan Wang, then a graduate student at Rice University, was alleviating his boredom by working ...

Physicists seem to be obsessed with cats. James Clerk Maxwell, the father of electrodynamics, studied falling feline s to investigate how they turned as they fell. Many physics teachers have used a ...