High-precision laser spectroscopy measurements on the thorium-229 nucleus could reveal new physics, say TU Wien physicists ...

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 ...

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, ...

When one thinks of measuring fundamental constants, like the fine structure constant, one thinks of complicated experiments that carefully prepare atoms or electrons in specific states and then gently ...

Angle of rotation: A light source (left) sends a beam of light through a topological insulator with an intrinsic magnetic field (centre), changing the direction of polarization by an angle that is ...

What is the meaning of life? Even the best of us couldn't hope to answer that question in a Universe Today article. But there are those who would try to "constrain" it, at least in terms of physics. A ...

Legislators change laws from time to time, but Mother Nature's laws are eternal -- or so it has seemed. Now, though, scientists are debating clues that suggest the laws of physics change over time.

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 ...

An ultraprecise new measurement has given some weird particle physics theories a black eye. By measuring one of nature’s most fundamental constants more precisely than before, scientists have tested ...

Recently, astronomers discovered very large natural masers (like lasers, masers emit coherent light, except in the microwave region) in cold clouds. These distant masers are very old, and they are ...

A new measurement of the fine-structure constant is three times more accurate than before. The constant helps glue together "coarse" and "fine" measurement of particles. The new measurement bests a ...