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Wave Dynamics
There are limits to where physics makes meaningful predictions: beyond the Planck length, time, or energy. Here's why we can't go further.
22mins
"Quantum mechanics and quantum entanglement are becoming very real. We're beginning to be able to access this tremendously complicated configuration space to do useful things."
When we divide matter into its fundamental, indivisible components, are those particles truly point-like, or is there a finite minimum size?
Most waves need a medium to travel through. But the way that light and gravitational waves travel shows that space can't be a medium at all.
Gravitational waves are the last signatures that are emitted by merging black holes. What happens when these two phenomena meet in space?
Everything acts like a wave while it propagates, but behaves like a particle whenever it interacts. The origins of this duality go way back.
Our greatest tool for exploring the world inside atoms and molecules, and specifically electron transitions, just won 2023's Nobel Prize.
Is it like a tiny ball — or what?
Brain activity may be more like "ripples in a pond" rather than signals sent on a telecommunications network.
Contrary to common experience, not everything needs a medium to travel through. Overcoming that assumption removes the need for an aether.
From up close, the cracking sound of a thunderclap dominates. From far away, it's more like a drawn-out rumble. Can science explain why?
Temperatures in the Sun's core exceed 10 million degrees Celsius. But how on Earth did we actually come to know that?
The quantum world — and its inherent uncertainty — defies our ability to describe it in words.
A concept known as "wave-particle duality" famously applies to light. But it also applies to all matter — including you.
Light carries with it the secrets of reality in ways we cannot completely understand.
Drop sodium in water, and a violent, even explosive reaction will occur. But quantum physics is needed to explain why.
The pulse took just 35 hours to cover the whole world.
Many still cling to the idea that we live in a deterministic Universe, despite the nature of quantum physics. Now, the "least spooky" interpretation no longer works.
And either way, is energy or information conserved? When two things in the Universe that “always” occur meet one another, how do you know which one will win? Gravitational waves, […]
Quantum physics just keeps getting weirder, even as it gets more fascinating. “Is it a wave or is it a particle?” Never has such a simple question had such a […]
A recent headline claimed they could. But if gamma-rays are just a form of light, don’t they have to travel at light-speed? There’s an ultimate speed limit in the Universe: […]
Even though it was the crowning achievement of Einstein’s career, he was only a small part of the full story. If you were a physicist in the early 20th century, there […]
If you thought the Planck satellite just made temperature maps of the cosmic microwave background, this will astound you. The Milky Way, to human eyes, appears as simply a mix of […]
If you think nothing can move faster than light, check out this clever way to defeat that limit. Nothing can move faster than the speed of light. When Einstein set forth […]
Gravitational waves and spacetime ripples have so much more to do with the Universe than just merging black holes. “The years of searching in the dark for a truth that one […]
Did you guess ‘resonance’? Guess again. “At least six lamp posts were snapped off while I watched. A few minutes later, I saw a side girder bulge out. But, though the […]
A live-blog event happened a week ago, but you can catch the entire thing anew here, right now! “We have never observed infinity in nature. Whenever you have infinities in […]
Your theory predicts something novel? How nice. But no one will pay you any mind unless you test it. “He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards […]