A tiny levitating bead records the kicks delivered by impacts from individual gas atoms. Its jitters could become the basis for precision measurements—and searches for dark matter.

This issue of PT explores the relationships and larger forces that help forge the professional paths of scientists. Drawing ...

The thermodynamic and quantum mechanical properties of topological insulators provide a path toward scalable energy storage ...

Tested in pigs, a new battery design offers a safer, more reliable alternative to standard power sources for ingestible medical devices. Swallowing a battery typically requires a trip to the emergency ...

In physics, you learn how to work with incomplete information, question assumptions, develop hypotheses, and keep moving ...

In 1994, after he had completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, ...

Science’s endless frontier is a changing frontier. It requires a dynamic approach to governance, collaboration, and ...

Spring is a busy time for Alex and Will, two physics PhD students. Both have conferences and fellowship application deadlines approaching. Alex is excited for the conference. The schedule he has built ...

The precision measurement and quantum communities are upset about the secretiveness of the move and its potential damage to US science. Researchers at NIST who hail from outside the US are scrambling ...

With strong magnetic fields and intense lasers or pulsed electric currents, physicists can reconstruct the conditions inside astrophysical objects and create nuclear fusion reactors. If matter is ...

Beneath the ice shelves of the frozen continent, a hidden boundary layer of turbulent ocean is determining Antarctica’s fate. Although the southernmost continent’s ice shelves are colossal—they can ...

T HE NEUTRON was discovered in 1932. Why, then, did it take seven years before nuclear fission was found? Fission is obviously a striking phenomenon; it results in a large amount of radioactivity of ...