(PhysOrg.com) -- In two separate studies, Princeton-led teams of scientists have found a new type of `light-like` electron and visualized for the first time another type that doesn`t bounce back when material imperfections are encountered on the surface of special insulators. The discoveries advance the fundamental understanding of condensed matter physics and may have implications for the development of computing devices millions of times faster than today`s most powerful computers.

(Phys.org) -- The laws of classical electromagnetism that were developed in the 19th century are the same laws that scientists use today. They include Maxwell’s four equations along with the Lorentz law, which describes the force exerted by electric and magnetic fields on charged particles. But Masud Mansuripur, a professor ...

'Tractor beams' of light that pull objects towards them are no longer science fiction. Haifeng Wang at the A*STAR Data Storage Institute and co-workers have now demonstrated how a tractor beam can in fact be realized on a small scale.

First of all, the neutrinophone isn’t really a phone. It has the potential to be used for communication across immense distances—including into outer space—but even Jeff Nelson says the neutrinophone’s debut was “little more than an outreach stunt.”

Although it's invisible, dark matter accounts for at least 80 percent of the matter in the universe. No one knows what it is, but most scientists would bet on weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs.

(Phys.org) -- Quantum computers may someday revolutionize the information world. But in order for quantum computers at distant locations to communicate with one another, they have to be linked together in a network. While several building blocks for a quantum computer have already been successfully tested in the ...

(Phys.org) -- In quantum physics physical processes in condensed matter and other many-body systems can often be described with quasiparticles. In Innsbruck, for the first time Rudolf Grimm’s team of physicists has succeeded in experimentally realizing a new quasiparticle – a repulsive polaron – in an ultracold quantum gas. The ...

Plutonium is the most complex element in the periodic table, yet it is also one of the most poorly understood ones. But now a well-known scientific technique, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, may turn out to be the perfect tool for uncovering some of plutonium’s mysteries.