Thorium atomic nuclei can be used for very specific precision measurements. This had been suspected for decades, and the search for suitable atomic nucleus states had been ongoing worldwide. In 2024, ...

The fine structure constant is one of the most important natural constants of all. At TU Wien, a remarkable way of measuring it has been found—it shows up as a rotation angle. One over 137: This is ...

Even on a black hole’s turf, an essential constant of nature holds steady. According to standard physics, the fine-structure constant, which governs interactions of electrically charged particles, is ...

A crucial number that rules the universe goes big in a strange quantum material. The fine-structure constant is about 10 times its normal value in a type of material called quantum spin ice, ...

In sports and in cosmology, the rules of the game aren't supposed to change as you go along. Athletes call this playing fair. Cosmologists call it the cosmological principle, and it means that the ...

In physics, the Fine Structure Constant is one the strangest numbers. The Fine Structure Constant is one the strangest numbers in all of physics. It’s the job of physicists to worry about numbers, but ...

Black holes remain a fascinating idea in popular physics while inspiring high-level research. Indeed, the 2020 Nobel Prize for Physics honoured theoretical work on black holes carried out by Roger ...

One of the most exciting prospects in physics has been discovering that fundamental constants are not actually constant at all. When I first started writing, physicists and astronomers were just ...

Electronics is really an applied branch of physics, so it isn’t surprising that if you are serious about your electronics, you probably know a little physics, too. If you’ve ever heard the term “fine ...