Cracking a 15 year physics mystery, researchers measured the precise size of a proton. In A Nutshell A team in Germany used an unprecedentedly precise laser measurement of hydrogen to pin down the ...

Last year marked the 270th anniversary of Benjamin Franklin’s lightning rod — but it’s more than a relic of history. The Franklin rod remains in use today because the simple design exploits some ...

Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) modes are a type of light wave that can carry the external torque of photons as they move through space. They are useful in many fields, from optical communications to ...

At any given moment, trillions of particles called neutrinos are streaming through our bodies and every material in our surroundings, without noticeable effect. Smaller than electrons and lighter than ...

Dozens of times over the last decade NASA scientists have launched laser beams at a reflector the size of a paperback novel about 240,000 miles (385,000 kilometers) away from Earth. They announced ...

Physicists in China have demonstrated that a structure called an optical metasurface can individually trap up to 78,400 neutral atoms – a promising development in efforts to build a large-scale ...

A new experiment has demonstrated something that sounds physically impossible – light itself casting a shadow. It turns out that if you manipulate a laser just right, then hit it side-on with another ...

Some days really are longer than others. And now scientists know by precisely how much. Using a laser gyroscope, scientists have measured variations in Earth’s rotation rate smaller than a millionth ...