quanta magazine

A Puzzling Quantum Scenario Appears to Violate a Law of Physics

[ad_1] Remember we’re dealing with the photon’s wave function here. Since the bounce doesn’t constitute a measurement, the wave function…

3 years ago

A Brain Chemical Helps Neurons Know When to Start a Movement

[ad_1] By washing through the brain, neuromodulators “allow you to govern the excitability of a large region of the brain…

3 years ago

An Antimatter Experiment Shows Surprises Near Absolute Zero

[ad_1] The project was designed to see if spectroscopy in a helium bath was possible at all—a proof of concept…

3 years ago

Mitochondria Double as Tiny Lenses in the Eye

[ad_1] A mosquito watches you through a lattice of microscopic lenses. You stare back, fly swatter in hand, closely tracking…

3 years ago

A Newly Measured Particle Could Break Known Physics

[ad_1] Physicists have found that an elementary particle called the W boson appears to be 0.1 percent too heavy—a tiny…

3 years ago

A New Tool for Finding Dark Matter Digs Up Nothing

[ad_1] Even the strongest gravitational waves that pass through the planet, created by the distant collisions of black holes, only…

3 years ago

Peptides on Stardust May Have Provided a Shortcut to Life

[ad_1] Billions of years ago, some unknown location on the sterile, primordial Earth became a cauldron of complex organic molecules…

3 years ago

Math’s ‘Oldest Problem Ever’ Gets a New Answer

[ad_1] Number theorists are always looking for hidden structure. And when confronted by a numerical pattern that seems unavoidable, they…

3 years ago