Experimental physics

Two teams have made photons act as if time were simultaneously flowing in two directions. The experiments demonstrate a way to potentially boost the performance of quantum devices.

By using fluids to model inaccessible realms of the cosmos, Silke Weinfurtner is “looking for a deeper truth beyond one system.” But what can such experiments teach us?

The unprecedented experiment explores the possibility that space-time somehow emerges from quantum information.

Physical-collapse theories have long offered a natural solution to the central mystery of the quantum world. But a series of increasingly precise experiments are making them untenable.

A new atomic-scale experiment all but settles the origin of the strong form of superconductivity seen in cuprate crystals, confirming a 35-year-old theory.

Decades after a Tanzanian teenager initiated study of the “Mpemba effect,” the effort to confirm or refute it is leading physicists toward new theories about how substances relax to equilibrium.

Physicists are building neural networks out of vibrations, voltages and lasers, arguing that the future of computing lies in exploiting the universe’s complex physical behaviors.

Throwing out data seems to make measurements of distances and angles more precise. The reason why has been traced to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.

A new analysis of W bosons suggests these particles are significantly heavier than predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics.