Lifeboat Foundation

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Whether for use in cybersecurity, gaming or scientific simulation, the world needs true random numbers, but generating them is harder than one might think. But a group of Brown University physicists has developed a technique that can potentially generate millions of random digits per second by harnessing the behavior of — tiny magnetic anomalies that arise in certain two-dimensional materials.

Their research, published in Nature Communications, reveals previously unexplored dynamics of single, the researchers say. Discovered around a half-decade ago, have sparked interest in physics as a path toward next-generation computing devices that take advantage of the magnetic properties of particles — a field known as spintronics.

“There has been a lot of research into the global dynamics of, using their movements as a basis for performing computations,” said Gang Xiao, chair of the Department of Physics at Brown and senior author of the research. “But in this work, we show that purely random fluctuations in the size of can be useful as well. In this case, we show that we can use those fluctuations to generate random numbers, potentially as many as 10 million digits per second.”

A few years ago, a novel measurement technique showed that protons are probably smaller than had been assumed since the 1990s. The discrepancy surprised the scientific community; some researchers even believed that the Standard Model of particle physics would have to be changed. Physicists at the University of Bonn and the Technical University of Darmstadt have now developed a method that allows them to analyze the results of older and more recent experiments much more comprehensively than before. This also results in a smaller proton radius from the older data. So there is probably no difference between the values — no matter which measurement method they are based on. The study appeared in Physical Review Letters.

Shaken optical lattice undergoes discontinuous phase transition.

A hundred years of physics tells us that collective atomic vibrations, called phonons, can behave like particles or waves. When they hit an interface between two materials, they can bounce off like a tennis ball. If the materials are thin and repeating, as in a superlattice, the phonons can jump between successive materials.

Now there is definitive, experimental proof that at the nanoscale, the notion of multiple thin materials with distinct vibrations no longer holds. If the materials are thin, their atoms arrange identically, so that their vibrations are similar and present everywhere. Such structural and vibrational coherency opens new avenues in materials design, which will lead to more energy efficient, low-power devices, novel material solutions to recycle and convert waste heat to electricity, and new ways to manipulate light with heat for advanced computing to power 6G wireless communication.

The discovery emerged from a long-term collaboration of scientists and engineers at seven universities and two U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories. Their paper, “Emergent Interface Vibrational Structure of Oxide Superlattices,” was published January 26 in Nature.

As far as we can tell from modern science, there’s no upper limit to temperature. There sure is a lower limit, though. We call that absolute zero, measured as −273.15 °C (−459.67 °F). Scientists have yet to reach that limit in any experiment, but they’re getting close. A team of physicists in Germany has gotten closer than ever before, reaching a temperature of 38 trillionths of a degree from absolute zero, according to New Atlas.

This news might sound familiar because it is — scientists have inched closer to absolute zero on numerous occasions. A few years ago, MIT created what was at the time the coldest spot in the universe with sodium and potassium atoms. The International Space Station has also conducted experiments within a fraction of a degree of absolute zero. The problem is that no matter how well insulated your testing setup is, a tiny amount of energy always sneaks in from the environment. When that happens, you can’t reach absolute zero and halt all atomic motion.

The team from the University of Bremen broke the record once again by dropping the experiment (above) from the top of a very tall tower. Yes, really. They started with a cloud of 100,000 rubidium atoms, which were confined inside a magnetic field. When cooled, the atoms clump together and form a mysterious state of matter known as a Bose-Einstein condensate. In this state, the atoms act like one giant atom, making quantum effects visible at the macroscopic scale.

The strongest magnetic field ever measured anywhere in the universe has failed to produce detectable magnetic monopoles. These hypothetical particles are predicted by many calculations of possible phenomena beyond the standard model of particle physics, but more than a century of searching still hasn’t turned up any signs of them.

All magnets that we know of have at least two poles – typically a north and south pole – with opposite magnetic charges. However, some models of the universe predict that there should be particles with only a north or a south pole called magnetic monopoles. For example, the existence of magnetic monopoles would explain why electric charge is quantised, meaning it comes in packets with a minimum size.

Over the past century or so, researchers have searched for magnetic monopoles both in space and in the smash-ups of particles at colliders, but they haven’t been found yet. Igor Ostrovskiy at the University of Alabama and his colleagues looked for monopoles being produced by a proposed phenomenon called the Schwinger effect, wherein extremely powerful magnetic fields could spontaneously produce magnetic particles and their antiparticles.

Koenigsegg has announced new high power, compact motors and powertrains for electric cars.

Christian von Koenigsegg is an inveterate tinkerer who has built a business on his ability to squeeze extraordinary amounts of power out of internal combustion engines. Lately, he has turned his talents to electric motors and drivetrains. On January 31, his company announced two breakthrough products that could transform the world of electric cars.

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If scientists could measure the oscillations of just one energized cesium atom, they’d be able to keep perfect time, but they can’t due to a weird phenomenon called the standard quantum limit.

Instead, they have to measure thousands of atoms at once and then average out the results for atomic clocks, which leads to a just slightly imprecise second.

Now, MIT researchers have found a way to create a more precise atomic clock by exploiting another weird quantum phenomenon: entanglement.