In This Image, Two Photons Interact. Here's Why It's Groundbreaking.

Normally, photons want nothing to do with one another. Light waves just pass through each other like ghosts. But now, for the first time ever, scientists at the University of Vienna have coaxed a strong interaction between two single photons. It's an achievement that opens up radical new possibilities for a number of… » 11/04/14 12:30pm 11/04/14 12:30pm

New experiment shows that time travel is even less likely than we…

A recent experiment stomps on the dreams of many theoretical physicists, hopeful children, and Star Trek IV fans. After a series of tests that suggested we might discover a theoretical form of time travel, scientists hit a brick wall. Or they had hit a brick wall. Or perhaps they will. Tough to get time travel grammar… » 7/27/11 6:30am 7/27/11 6:30am

Why can we see through glass but not other solids? Let this awesome…

It seems like a simple enough question - why are some materials transparent while others are opaque? But, as this video from the University of Nottingham's Sixty Symbols project explains, a lot of the most common explanations you get are fundamentally wrong. Watch a professional scientist recoil in horror at the… » 2/20/11 7:30pm 2/20/11 7:30pm

With plasmonics, light can penetrate solid sheets of metal

Every day, the world finds another way to show us that, once we work on a level that's small enough, nothing makes sense. Things we take for granted no longer happen. For instance, say you're lying in bed in the early morning sunlight - or, no judgment, the late afternoon sunlight. If all that daytime starts bothering… » 2/14/11 7:30am 2/14/11 7:30am

No one can escape friction, not even in a vacuum.

On earth, we're slowed down by the muck of the everyday world. Matter slows us down, rubbing against us and taking away our speed and power. Gravel, air, even slip-n-slides, exert some friction on us. This frictional force runs counter to our motion, and it can't be escaped anywhere on earth. Eventually, inevitably,… » 2/13/11 2:00pm 2/13/11 2:00pm