Physics & Math / Subatomic Particles

The Universe's Most Powerful Magnets

Nuclear fusion reactors, particle colliders, and other big-science rely on giant magnetic fields. But nature's most powerful magnets blow even our best efforts away. 08.21.2009

New Tech Could Make Nuclear the Best Weapon Against Climate Change

Two new designs aim to make nuclear reactors safer and vastly more efficient. 06.08.2009

Building the World's Wimpiest Space Thruster—Harder Than It Sounds

The ESA's new system is designed to counter the force of sunlight on a spacecraft—about the same as the force of gravity on a single human hair. 05.24.2009

10 Obscure Elements That Are More Important Than You'd Think

You know hydrogen and oxygen, helium and carbon. But the periodic table's frequently forgotten residents, rare elements with funny names, show up in many unexpected places. 05.20.2009

Countdown to Fusion: National Ignition Facility in Pictures

Researchers at Livermore National Lab expect to be producing energy with a controlled, self-sustaining fusion reaction within three years. 04.14.2009

Big Picture: Where Do Old Colliders Go to Die?

After the LHC comes online, old accelerators will stand by, just in case they're necessary, get salvaged for spare parts, or just lie untouched in the ground for years. 04.04.2009

The Man Who Found Quarks and Made Sense of the Universe

Murray Gell-Mann had a smash success with particles, notorious dustups with Feynman, and a missed opportunity with Einstein. 03.17.2009

What is This? A Psychedelic Place Mat?

Actually, you'd be more likely to see this pattern in your wine glass. 01.14.2009

Is Quantum Mechanics Controlling Your Thoughts?

Science's weirdest realm may be responsible for photosynthesis, our sense of smell, and even consciousness itself. 01.13.2009

#2: The LHC Begins Its Search for the "God Particle"

After many years and billions of dollars, the LHC had its fateful first test run. 12.22.2008

#69: Physicists Create a Perfect Place to Store Electricity

New "superinsulator" can hold a charge forever without leakage 12.10.2008

#70: A Single Electron Is Caught on Film

Scientists make one of the world's most remarkable movies. 12.10.2008

The Inner Life of Fish Revealed… by X-Rays

These stunning images offer a look inside the world's largest collection of fish. 09.24.2008

Nevermind The Black Hole Hoopla: Here's How the LHC Could Blow Up the World (of Physics)

The collider might find extra dimensions, dark matter, some unknown unknown, and—just maybe—nothing at all. 09.10.2008

An Essential, Concise History of the LHC, 2002–2008

DISCOVER's been all over the Large Hadron Collider since it was just a big hole in the ground. 09.10.2008

The Extremely Long Odds Against the Destruction of Earth

Don't be too concerned that the world’s largest particle accelerator is about to go online. 07.24.2008

Nothingness of Space Could Illuminate the Theory of Everything

Could the vacuum contain dark energy, gravity particles, and frictionless gears? 07.18.2008

3 People Who Are Pushing the Edge of Science

Growing electronics with viruses, finding alien life, and quantum privacy protection. 05.30.2008

Three Words That Could Overthrow Physics: “What Is Magnetism?”

The standard model still doesn't describe magnets' spooky action at a distance. 04.24.2008

Stupid Science Word of the Month: Unparticle

\un-pär-ti-cl\ n. (2007) A particle whose mass is unrelated to its energy. 04.16.2008

Keeping Up With The Picards

The director of Jumper on putting teleportation on-screen. 03.12.2008

Einstein Didn't Grok His Own Revolution

He thought black holes and quantum mechanics were too weird to be true. 03.10.2008

Teleportation? Very Possible. Next Up: Time Travel.

Some of the most far-out sci-fi is eminently do-able. 02.28.2008

20 Things You Didn't Know About... Relativity

Galileo invented it, Einstein understood it, and Eddington saw it. 02.25.2008

Stupid Science Word of the Month: Barn

A physics joke that bombed. Atomically. 01.29.2008

Say Hello to the First Antimolecule

Hope you enjoyed it, 'cause it wasn't around long. 12.05.2007

Beyond the Higgs

Looking for "the smoking gluon" 08.13.2007

The Biggest Thing in Physics

Two teams of physicists compete to explain matter—and win a Nobel Prize. 08.13.2007

Microscopy Approaches Fundamental Limits

If God can’t pin down tiny atoms, what hope do mere mortals have? 06.13.2007

The World's Most Complex Structure

Abstract 248-dimensional map may unify the laws of nature. 05.29.2007

Mining for Dark Matter

Seeking the universe’s missing ingredient inside a Minnesota mountain 05.15.2007

The Big Bang Machine

A Long Island particle smasher re-creates the moment of creation. 02.27.2007

You'll Know Less if You Read This Story

You'll Know Less If You Read This Story 11.22.2005

New Physics: Beads Clump When Shaken

New 7: Beads Clump When Shaken 10.24.2005

X [Marks the Spot]

Backyard black holes 10.24.2005

Catch Me if You Can

After spending decades and billions of dollars searching for the Higgs boson particle, physicists will soon find out if it was all just wishful thinking 07.24.2005

If an Electron Can Be in Two Places at Once, Why Can't You?

Electrons do it. Photons do it. Physics legend Roger Penrose thinks he finally knows why you and I can't do it too 06.05.2005

Surf's Up

02.22.2005

Antimatter

If we understand these mysterious particles, will we know why we exist? 08.02.2004

Black Holes Made Here

(Deliveries begin in 2007) 06.26.2004

Physics

01.02.2004

Physics

01.01.2003

Neutrinos of the Sea

Scientists hope to find rare high-energy particles in the sea. 09.01.2002

Follow Up:

04.01.2002

Physics

Year In Science 01.13.2002

The Unbearably Unstoppable Neutrino

Why a thousand of the best physicists from around the world are trying so hard to catch just a few of nature's weirdest particles 08.01.2001

The Glue That Holds the World Together

The most we learn about subatomic paricles called gluons, the more the universe seems to be made of nothing at all 07.01.2000

The Year in Science: Physics 1997

Score One (More) for the Spooks 01.01.1998

Beams of Stuff

To get closer to the true, quantum nature of matter, physicist David Pritchard has been splitting atoms down the middle, fiddling with the halves, and then putting them back together. In principle, he says, he could do the same to a bacterium. Or even a baby grand. 12.01.1997

The Antiblob

A fountain of anti-matter poses big questions. 08.01.1997

Plasma Porthole

02.01.1997

Quantum Cat Tricks

10.01.1996

Vanishing Electrons

07.01.1996

Inside the Quark

05.01.1996

The Bigon

04.01.1996

Flipping Neutrinos

04.01.1996

Whence the Rays? Thence the Rays

A source of mysterious cosmic rays is found at last. 03.01.1996

The Philosopher's Atom

Physicists have long struggled to see the quantum mechanical atom in real-world terms. Now one odd atom is giving them a glimpse--not quite of the phantasmal quantum world, perhaps, but at least of the boundary between the world and the one we inhabit. 11.01.1995

A Small Problem of Propulsion

It's a long way to alpha centauri, but some think antimatter could send us there in record time. 10.01.1995

Over The Top

Trying to pin down the most elusive member of the quark family is the perfect task for Melissa Franklin, a physicist with a flair for the eccentric and a love for the big machines. 02.01.1995

Sweet Little Accelerator

When it comes to particle accelerators, bigger has always meant better. But now a small new machine in Virginia promises to measure up the big guys. 08.01.1994

The War on Radicals

07.01.1994

Welcome to Femtoland

In southern California there's a place where molecular matings are captured flagrante delicto, by laser flashes so fleeting that 10 trillion will pass while you read this sentence. 02.01.1994

The Cinderella Particle

The lowly muon provides insight into the dark spaces between atoms. 12.01.1993

Nuclear Detectives

In California some gumshoe physicists are using a particle accelerator to nab polluters. 04.01.1993

The Biggest Chill

Physicists expect to see some very strange things when matter snuggles up to absolute zero. 02.01.1993

Atom Chasing

Thanks to Sam Hurst. The chemical composition of matter is now an open book. He can detect impurities as small as a single atom. 07.01.1992

Time Travel Redux

Blow up a balloon very, very fast, or zip around a pair of cosmic strings, and you're on your way. 04.01.1992

Watery Eyes

03.01.1992

Vacuum Matters

Forget traditional distinctions between matter and empty space—it's all a seamless whole. 03.01.1992