physics
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Physics Mystery Gets Even Deeper After Long-Awaited Muon Reveal
Inside a locked cabinet, an envelope held a number that was poised to rock the physics community, regardless of its contents. The value, a clock measurement deliberately hidden to keep physicists’ data analysis unbiased, would be used in a calculation that could either bring one of particle physics’ foremost mysteries to an end — or…
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See a Black Hole’s Magnetic Fields in New Image From the Event Horizon Telescope
In April 2019, the world was spellbound, if only for a moment, by an ominous void encircled by a half-halo of light. It was the first direct image of a black hole; more specifically, a supermassive gravitational abyss at the core of Messier 87, a galaxy in the constellation Virgo some 54 million light-years from…
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Russian Scientists Drop a Telescope Into the Deepest Lake on Earth
On Saturday, a team of Russian researchers dropped a brand-new telescope into frigid Lake Baikal, the deepest lake on Earth. It wasn’t an accident; the instrument took the plunge to give the scientists a better shot at detecting neutrinos, elusive subatomic particles that are extremely difficult to spot, since they usually pass right through matter…
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Meet the Pint-Sized Robots That Spontaneously Dance
In January 2020, a second-floor lab at Northwestern University was filled with the mild-mannered clacking of three robots pushing each other around. The trio were in a small ring as they hit against one another, though the petite robots weren’t the rock ‘em, sock ‘em variety. These were smart, active particles — “smarticles” — outfitted…