In a short talk at Caltech, physicist Richard Feynman laid out a vision of manipulating and controlling atoms at the tiniest ...

The tiny atom, the basic building block of everything, is itself almost nothing, but atoms form a crossroads where science ...

Using ultracold atoms and laser light, researchers recreated the behavior of a Josephson junction—an essential component of ...

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. The Earth’s crust is cracked into seven major tectonic plates ...

The quantum world has a reputation for being elusive, but physicists are now starting to watch it unfold in real time. For the first time, researchers have directly imaged the restless motion of atoms ...

Physicists know how to describe single atoms, and they know how to describe a large collection of particles, like air. But they don’t always know when to switch from one description to the other. As ...

For the first time, scientists have observed the iconic Shapiro steps, a staircase-like quantum effect, in ultracold atoms.

One of the abiding mysteries of physics is how to make the transition between quantum and classical objects. With very few exceptions, we live in a world that is clearly and obviously classical in ...

It’s bizarre to feel awestruck and disappointed at the same time. Yet this is often how I feel when I read articles about ultracold atoms and Bose Einstein condensates. I’ll get to the awesome and ...

You reach for a glass of water only to knock it to the floor, shattering the glass and shooting shards all over the place. If only the glass was unbreakable. Now, researchers have brought this ...

For the first time, researchers have played matchmaker between two specific atoms, joining them together to form a molecule. Typically, chemists make molecules by mixing up many constituent atoms, ...