Physics & Chemistry

Your Next Smartphone Could Have Security Sensors Built Into Its Screen

The slab of glass on the front of your phone currently detects your finger prods and allows light to pour through—but soon, it could provide an extra layer of security, too. A team of researchers from Polytechnique Montreal has devised a new technique which allows them to create in-glass sensors within slabs of Gorilla Glass,…

Physics & Chemistry Jamie Condliffe

How Scientists Will Look Inside Fukushima’s Radioactive Cores

The inside of Fukushima’s three busted reactor cores are a big mess. It’s basically just hundreds of tons of very, very, very radioactive materials like uranium, plutonium, and cesium. Workers want to clean it up, but they have a problem. It’s so dangerous, they can’t peek inside, much less go inside. Don’t worry. Technology’s coming…

Physics & Chemistry Adam Clark Estes

The Science of Swings Is More Complex Than You Thought

Swings are a wonderful childhood staple, but it turns out that they’re not quite as straightforward as you may have realized in your younger days. This video explains the physics behind them. Sure, you can imagine them as a kind of pendulum—but a rather complicated pendulum. In fact, they rely on a concept known as…

Physics & Chemistry Jamie Condliffe

How Atomic Bombs Help Unmask Counterfeit Wine

As long as rich men are willing to pay exorbitant amounts for old, fermented juice, there will be schemers willing to dupe them out of their money. But if you’re dropping a cool half million on four bottles of wine supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson (true story), you want to make sure you have the…

Physics & Chemistry Sarah Zhang

Friday Physics

It’s Friday, which means FlowerGirlPhysicist is running an open session for physics questions on the Observation Deck. ‘Tis the time for estimates, order-of-magnitudes, and general fun with numbers! Just make sure to bring adorable kitten-gifs as a Thank You.

Physics & Chemistry Mika McKinnon

How Boomerangs Work

Non-returning boomerangs have been used for at least 20,000-30,000 years, with the oldest known example carved from a mammoth’s tusk. These non-returning boomerangs were used for hunting and were carved for straight flight and to stay in the air as long as possible when thrown correctly. The hunter was then able to throw the primitive…

Physics & Chemistry Emily Upton - TodayIFoundOut.com

This Beautiful Bench Has a Real Sense of Balance

If you like to challenge gravity, the Leaning Bench might be just the ticket for you: it uses physics to stay upright, but fans of sudden movements may find that they need to sit a little more carefully if they’re to remain seated. Created by Izabela Boloz, the bench features just two legs, and relies…

Physics & Chemistry Jamie Condliffe

Cadmium Arsenide: A 3D Alternative to Graphene That’s Way More Useful

There’s no denying that graphene is a wonderful material—strong, flexible, and highly conductive—but it’s taking a long time to become a commercial reality. Now, scientists working with a material called cadmium arsenide believe it offers many of the same benefits—but could actually be far easier to use in the real world. Researchers from Oxford, Stanford…

Physics & Chemistry Jamie Condliffe

New Method of Quantum Teleportation Could Bring Us a Quantum Internet

A team of Dutch scientists just announced a new method of quantum teleportation that uses entanglement as a form of communication. They can successfully teleport data over a distance of ten feet. But, more importantly, they can also do so with 100 percent reliability. The feat in and of itself isn’t such a big breakthrough.…

Physics & Chemistry Adam Clark Estes

Now We Can Watch Crystals Grow an Atom At a Time

Material scientists have watched crystals grow atom-by-atom for the first time—which will allow incredibly fine-grained control of how their microscopic structures are grown in the future. The researchers took a thin film of molecules containing the metal osmium, carbon and other elements, then fired a beam of electrons at it. That caused the molecules to…

Physics & Chemistry Jamie Condliffe

Bizarre Soviet-Era Theory About New State of Matter Is Actually Right

Here’s your dose of mind-bending physics for the day. In 1970, a young Soviet physicist named Vitaly Efimov proposed a trio of ultracold particles could arrange themselves in an “infinite nesting-doll configuration.” Scientists have now published compelling evidence that this state of matter, once dismissed by physicists, totally does exist. Like most of us, physicists…

Physics & Chemistry Sarah Zhang

U.S. Physics Panel Wants to Build Billion-Dollar, 800-Mile Neutrino Beam

A committee made up of high-profile U.S. scientists has a bold plan afoot. It wants to build a billion-dollar particle beam to blast neutrinos 800 miles underground, from Chicago to South Dakota. The audacious plan would, according to Steven Ritz from the University of California Santa Cruz, be the biggest American particle physics project in…

Physics & Chemistry Jamie Condliffe

This Is the Closest We’ve Ever Come to Recreating Shark Skin

Shark skin is famously sleek and dragless, the envy of swimsuit designers. Perhaps less famous is what shark skin’s oddly rough surface looks like up close: an eerie matrix of microscopic tooth-like scales. Now, scientists are 3D printing artificial shark skin in hopes of unlocking its swimming secrets. The 3D-printed shark skin above is the…

Physics & Chemistry Sarah Zhang

We Still Don’t Know How Static Electricity Works

At some point in physics class, your teacher probably rubbed a balloon against his hair and explained static electricity. But what your teacher didn’t tell you—the full story about static electricity—is that scientists are just now realizing it is a lot more complicated than thought. The classic explanation, if you can remember back to physics…

Physics & Chemistry Sarah Zhang

Scientists May Have Figured Out How to Turn Light into Matter

Back in 1934, a team of physicists came up with an idea for how one might create matter from light. Put simply, just slam two photons into each other to get an electron and a positron, a.k.a. matter. And now, some 80 years later, a team of physicists have a plan to carry out the…

Physics & Chemistry Adam Clark Estes

Smartphone Cameras Can Be Used as Quantum Random Number Generators

Random numbers fuel our digital lives, but they’re notoriously difficult to generate properly. Now, scientists have shown that smartphone cameras can be used as quantum random number generators—and it could change the face of mobile security. The problem, you see, is that true random numbers can’t be generated by deterministic processes—like software on a computer—because…

Physics & Chemistry Jamie Condliffe

Sonic Tractor Beam

Doctor Who visited Star Trek, and the crossover showed up in our reality as a macroscopic acoustic tractor beam. The newly-developed acoustic tractor beam can pull objects six orders of magnitude — that’s a million times! — larger than any previous experiments. The concept of manipulating matter through the careful application of fields first showed…

Physics & Chemistry Mika McKinnon

What Are Fractals, And Why Should I Care?

Fractal geometry is a field of math born in the 1970s and mainly developed by Benoit Mandelbrot. If you’ve already heard of fractals, you’ve probably seen the picture above. It’s called the Mandelbrot Set and is an example of a fractal shape. This article originally appeared on George Dallas’s blog, which you should absolutely go…

Physics & Chemistry George M. Dallas

This Trick Will Let You See Anything Without Glasses

If you’re ever in a fix without glasses but need to see, this trick lets you see the world again—however blurry you vision is. Minute Physics explains the science behind the trick, which just requires you to make a tiny little hole with your hand to peer through. Somehow, magically, it brings a blurry world…

Physics & Chemistry Jamie Condliffe

How You Can Make Graphene at Home in Your Blender

Graphene may be the supermaterial to rule them all—but it turns out you can make it at home. In your kitchen blender. Here’s how. A team of researchers from Trinity College Dublin in Ireland have been trying to work out the best way to mass produce graphene, those sheets of carbon that are just one…

Physics & Chemistry Jamie Condliffe

Your Next Smartphone Could Have Security Sensors Built Into Its Screen

How Scientists Will Look Inside Fukushima’s Radioactive Cores

The Science of Swings Is More Complex Than You Thought

How Atomic Bombs Help Unmask Counterfeit Wine

Friday Physics

How Boomerangs Work

This Beautiful Bench Has a Real Sense of Balance

Cadmium Arsenide: A 3D Alternative to Graphene That’s Way More Useful

New Method of Quantum Teleportation Could Bring Us a Quantum Internet

Now We Can Watch Crystals Grow an Atom At a Time

Bizarre Soviet-Era Theory About New State of Matter Is Actually Right

U.S. Physics Panel Wants to Build Billion-Dollar, 800-Mile Neutrino Beam

This Is the Closest We’ve Ever Come to Recreating Shark Skin

We Still Don’t Know How Static Electricity Works

Scientists May Have Figured Out How to Turn Light into Matter

Smartphone Cameras Can Be Used as Quantum Random Number Generators

Sonic Tractor Beam

What Are Fractals, And Why Should I Care?

This Trick Will Let You See Anything Without Glasses

How You Can Make Graphene at Home in Your Blender

Judge Kills Lawsuit Against Infamous Study That Might Have Increased Teen Suicides

Artemis 2 Day 3: Follow the Mission With Our Live Updates 🔴

Researchers Discover How to Add Psilocybin, DMT, and Other Psychedelics to Tobacco

Fake Videos Are Already Spreading After Two US Air Force Planes Go Down Near Iran

We’re Obsessed With the Meta Fits on These New Star Wars Toys

Behold These Breathtaking Views of Earth Captured by the Artemis 2 Astronauts

‘Chainsaw Man’ Briefly Returns in ‘Dandadan’

Meta Smart Glasses Can Now Track All the Food You Put Into Your Mouth

AirPods Max 2 vs. Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen): Which ANC Headphones Win?

The Best Gadgets of March 2026

AirPods Max 2 Review: Still Ridiculously Expensive and Ridiculously Nice

DJI Osmo 360 Review: The Best 360 Camera for the DJI-Pilled

Aqara Smart Lock U400 Review: Hands-free Unlocking at Its Best

MSI Prestige 14 Flip AI+ Review: A Solid 2-in-1 Laptop With Some Glaring Flaws

Sonos Play Review: Call It a Comeback

Sonos Era 100 SL Review: The Cheapest Way Into Wired Sonos Sound

Let us help find what you are looking for...