Planck Standard: Physics https://planckstandard.com/physics/ Physics from the quantum to the cosmos: particle physics, quantum computing, astrophysics, cosmology and the discoveries that change what is possible. en-us Thu, 24 Sep 2026 07:04:28 GMT https://planckstandard.com/assets/logo-512.pngPlanck Standard: Physicshttps://planckstandard.com/physics/ Verlinde's Emergent Gravity Predicts a Key Dark Matter Pattern With No Dark Matter at All https://planckstandard.com/article/verlindes-emergent-gravity-predicts-a-key-dark-matter-patter.html https://planckstandard.com/article/verlindes-emergent-gravity-predicts-a-key-dark-matter-patter.html Thu, 24 Sep 2026 07:03:39 GMT Physics Galaxies whose brightness differs 400,000-fold share nearly the same central dark matter surface density. A Sejong University physicist derived 170 solar masses per square parsec from gravity alone, inside the observed range. First 3D Wave Simulations of 'Fuzzy' Dark Matter Match a Real Lensed Quasar https://planckstandard.com/article/first-3d-wave-simulations-of-fuzzy-dark-matter-match-a-real.html https://planckstandard.com/article/first-3d-wave-simulations-of-fuzzy-dark-matter-match-a-real.html Thu, 24 Sep 2026 07:03:38 GMT Physics If dark matter is made of ultralight particles that ripple like waves, those ripples should shift the multiple images of a distant quasar. The simulations matched a real lensed quasar better than standard models. Black Holes Ten Times the Sun's Mass and Black Holes Millions of Times Heavier Turn On Their Jets at Exactly the Same Point: When Feeding Drops to 2% of the Eddington Limit https://planckstandard.com/article/black-holes-of-every-size-launch-jets-at-2-pct-eddington.html https://planckstandard.com/article/black-holes-of-every-size-launch-jets-at-2-pct-eddington.html Mon, 21 Sep 2026 17:22:05 GMT Physics Tidal disruption events compress a supermassive black hole's feeding cycle from millennia into years. A Curtin-IAS team found the delayed radio jets, arriving hundreds to thousands of days after a star is torn apart, switch on at the same threshold known from X-ray binaries in our galaxy. 'The physics does not seem to care how big they are.' Physicists Hit a Strip of Graphene With Circularly Polarized Laser Pulses 200 Femtoseconds Long, Turning It Briefly Into a Topological Insulator That Doesn't Exist in Nature, Then Used a Second Laser at Double the Frequency to Steer the Electrons Inside It, Bending Them Sideways With No Magnet at All https://planckstandard.com/article/two-color-light-steers-electrons-in-floquet-graphene.html https://planckstandard.com/article/two-color-light-steers-electrons-in-floquet-graphene.html Mon, 21 Sep 2026 14:27:35 GMT Physics The Erlangen, Munich, Technion and Central Florida team reports in Nature Physics that it can set the size and direction of the current by adjusting the polarization and timing of the two beams, the first time anyone has controlled electrons within a light-made Floquet state rather than just observing it. Ultracold Molecules Normally Destroy Each Other in Essentially Every Collision https://planckstandard.com/article/ultracold-molecular-gas-loss-suppressed-10000-fold.html https://planckstandard.com/article/ultracold-molecular-gas-loss-suppressed-10000-fold.html Mon, 21 Sep 2026 14:27:34 GMT Physics The Science paper from Sebastian Will's lab and theorist Tijs Karman reports the suppression was so complete that only an upper bound, set by how long a single molecule survives, could be measured. It opens the door to 'strongly dipolar quantum liquids.' Why Does Honey Turn to Glass Without Freezing? https://planckstandard.com/article/why-does-honey-turn-to-glass-without-freezing-eindhoven-phys.html https://planckstandard.com/article/why-does-honey-turn-to-glass-without-freezing-eindhoven-phys.html Mon, 21 Sep 2026 05:16:00 GMT Physics Older theories said the clusters would grow forever and the liquid would suddenly lock up. Adding that feedback loop to the equations made the sharp transition vanish and matched the supercomputer simulations almost perfectly. The same physics may describe tumor cells that get stuck and then start invading. Physicists Dismiss Primordial Black Holes as a 'Fine-Tuned' Dark Matter Idea and Treat Particles as the 'Natural' Default https://planckstandard.com/article/physicists-dismiss-primordial-black-holes-as-a-fine-tuned-da.html https://planckstandard.com/article/physicists-dismiss-primordial-black-holes-as-a-fine-tuned-da.html Mon, 21 Sep 2026 01:14:07 GMT Physics Stefano Profumo applied the Barbieri-Giudice fine-tuning measure, which asks how wildly a model's prediction swings when you nudge one input, to WIMPs, Higgs-portal particles and several ways the early universe could have made black holes. 'The tuning lives in the specific model, not in the kind of dark matter you started with.' Quantum Computers Talk in Microwaves https://planckstandard.com/article/quantum-computers-talk-in-microwaves-fiber-optics-carry-ligh.html https://planckstandard.com/article/quantum-computers-talk-in-microwaves-fiber-optics-carry-ligh.html Mon, 21 Sep 2026 01:14:07 GMT Physics The Nature Materials paper from Vinod Menon's group is the first demonstration of microwave-to-optical transduction through magnon-exciton coupling. It does not yet move single quantum states, but it works in a bulk crystal that can be thinned to a few atomic layers. Physicists Sifted Three Years of LHC Collisions for the Spherical Spray a Microscopic Black Hole Would Leave When It Evaporates https://planckstandard.com/article/physicists-sifted-three-years-of-lhc-collisions-for-the-sphe.html https://planckstandard.com/article/physicists-sifted-three-years-of-lhc-collisions-for-the-sphe.html Sun, 20 Sep 2026 01:22:24 GMT Physics The UC Santa Barbara team used a new 'phase-space distance' method with a supervised machine-learning classifier for the first time in a particle search and showed it beats the standard sphericity test. 'It's not a dead end,' said graduate student Danyi Zhang. 'If this thing existed with these properties, we'd have seen it.' Kyushu Physicists Fired the Gekko-XII Laser at Two Spots on a Carbon Target, Slammed the Resulting Plasma Clouds Together and Recreated a Solar Flare on a Tabletop https://planckstandard.com/article/kyushu-physicists-fired-the-gekko-xii-laser-at-two-spots-on.html https://planckstandard.com/article/kyushu-physicists-fired-the-gekko-xii-laser-at-two-spots-on.html Sat, 19 Sep 2026 23:03:30 GMT Physics The result backs a long-suspected 'universal' reconnection rate and says the speed is set inside the thin current sheet, not by the plasma feeding it. Better reconnection models mean better space weather forecasts for satellites and power grids. For Decades Network Science Assumed Identical Parts Make a Stable System https://planckstandard.com/article/for-decades-network-science-assumed-identical-parts-make-a-s.html https://planckstandard.com/article/for-decades-network-science-assumed-identical-parts-make-a-s.html Sat, 19 Sep 2026 23:03:30 GMT Physics The Science paper shows why the effect was missed: the simplified models everyone used, like Kuramoto, strip out the very dynamics that let disorder stabilize a network. It may also explain why huge, diverse ecosystems don't collapse the way 1970s math says they should. Maryland Physicists Stacked a Two-Dimensional Magnet on a Two-Dimensional Ferroelectric and Got a Room-Temperature Multiferroic That Switches Its Magnetism With a Small Voltage, 3,000 Times Without Wearing Out https://planckstandard.com/article/maryland-physicists-stacked-a-two-dimensional-magnet-on-a-tw.html https://planckstandard.com/article/maryland-physicists-stacked-a-two-dimensional-magnet-on-a-tw.html Fri, 18 Sep 2026 17:43:48 GMT Physics Neither long-range magnetic order nor ferroelectric order survives easily in a sheet a few atoms thick, and getting both to coexist at 19°C was thought to be extraordinarily hard. Cheng Gong's team did it by building each order in its own layer and pressing the layers together. For 40 Years, Theories of High-Temperature Superconductivity Assumed the Crystal Was the Same All the Way Through https://planckstandard.com/article/for-40-years-theories-of-high-temperature-superconductivity.html https://planckstandard.com/article/for-40-years-theories-of-high-temperature-superconductivity.html Fri, 18 Sep 2026 17:43:48 GMT Physics Scanning 3D X-ray diffraction at the upgraded European Synchrotron showed a lanthanum cuprate divided into orthorhombic and tetragonal regions with boundaries hundreds of times wider than expected. The team says those boundaries likely fight superconductivity and that bulk measurements will need reinterpreting. A Coffee-Mug-Sized Germanium Crystal Under 1.4 Kilometers of Italian Rock Listened for 62 Days for the Radiation a 1960s Theory Says Gravity Should Emit While It Kills Schrödinger's Cat https://planckstandard.com/article/gran-sasso-rules-out-gravity-model-for-quantum-collapse.html https://planckstandard.com/article/gran-sasso-rules-out-gravity-model-for-quantum-collapse.html Thu, 17 Sep 2026 21:19:01 GMT Physics The Károlyházy model held that tiny ripples in spacetime erode quantum superpositions and explain why big objects behave classically. The VIP collaboration at Gran Sasso says the predicted signal isn't there, and the null result narrows where quantum gravity can hide. Stanford Physicists Watched a Single Quantum of Sound Blink Out of Existence in Real Time https://planckstandard.com/article/stanford-watches-a-single-phonon-quantum-jump-in-real-time.html https://planckstandard.com/article/stanford-watches-a-single-phonon-quantum-jump-in-real-time.html Thu, 17 Sep 2026 21:19:01 GMT Physics Quantum jumps were seen in trapped ions in 1986 and in photons in 2007. Sound took another 19 years. The team paired a chip-scale resonator with a superconducting qubit that checked hundreds of times whether one phonon was still there. Physicists Heated the Electrons in Twisted Graphene by 20 Degrees While the Crystal Around Them Stayed Near Absolute Zero https://planckstandard.com/article/terahertz-heated-electrons-20-kelvin-lattice-stayed-cold-gra.html https://planckstandard.com/article/terahertz-heated-electrons-20-kelvin-lattice-stayed-cold-gra.html Thu, 17 Sep 2026 17:19:06 GMT Physics The National University of Singapore team used 0.14-terahertz radiation, whose photons carry just 0.6 millielectronvolts, to warm the charge carriers and nothing else. The trick separates two effects that every conventional measurement blurs together. Earth's Center of Mass Wobbles a Few Millimeters Every Year as Snow Piles Up in March and the Amazon Fills in April https://planckstandard.com/article/earth-s-center-of-mass-wobbles-a-few-millimeters-every-year.html https://planckstandard.com/article/earth-s-center-of-mass-wobbles-a-few-millimeters-every-year.html Thu, 17 Sep 2026 05:12:42 GMT Physics Two 900-pound 'disco ball' satellites launched in 1976 and 1992 have tracked the geocenter for decades, but the last two official estimates disagreed by 7 millimeters, nearly the size of the motion itself. A new JPL method cuts the error to fractions of an inch. CERN's BASE Team Drove 92 Antiprotons Around in a Truck, Unloaded Them Without Losing One and Kept Them Alive for More Than a Month https://planckstandard.com/article/base-antiprotons-stored-month-mobile-trap-nature.html https://planckstandard.com/article/base-antiprotons-stored-month-mobile-trap-nature.html Thu, 17 Sep 2026 01:19:09 GMT Physics The Nature paper published Wednesday describes the March road test and the next goal: a 10-hour trip from Geneva to Düsseldorf, where a magnetically quiet lab could compare protons and antiprotons 100 times more precisely than CERN can. Stuttgart Physicists Forced an Electron Into a Circular Orbit 10,000 Times Wider Than Normal and Kept It Stable for 11 Milliseconds, 20 Times Longer Than Ever Before, at Room Temperature With No Liquid Helium https://planckstandard.com/article/stuttgart-physicists-forced-an-electron-into-a-circular-orbi.html https://planckstandard.com/article/stuttgart-physicists-forced-an-electron-into-a-circular-orbi.html Wed, 16 Sep 2026 21:15:01 GMT Physics The team set three records at once for circular Rydberg atoms, giant atoms that are the leading candidates for neutral-atom quantum computers. The trick was two transparent conductive plates that block the room's own microwave glow, an idea from the 1980s. A Drop of Oil Has Almost No Free Ions, So It Shouldn't Pick Up a Charge Sliding Down Glass https://planckstandard.com/article/a-drop-of-oil-has-almost-no-free-ions-so-it-shouldn-t-pick-u.html https://planckstandard.com/article/a-drop-of-oil-has-almost-no-free-ions-so-it-shouldn-t-pick-u.html Wed, 16 Sep 2026 21:15:00 GMT Physics For decades 'slide electrification' has been blamed entirely on ions swapping at the liquid-solid boundary. The new Nature Physics experiments show electrons must also be jumping directly, a process previously thought to happen only when two solids rub. Every Tour Guide Says the Parthenon's Curves Were Built to Trick the Eye https://planckstandard.com/article/every-tour-guide-says-the-parthenon-s-curves-were-built-to-t.html https://planckstandard.com/article/every-tour-guide-says-the-parthenon-s-curves-were-built-to-t.html Wed, 16 Sep 2026 18:54:14 GMT Physics Alain Goriely traced the story to Vitruvius, writing four centuries after the temple was finished, and found 'insufficient historical evidence and no scientific evidence' that any of a dozen claimed refinements corrects anything a human can see. Elite Track Cyclists Are Already Moving at 0.4 Meters per Second at the Instant the Gate Opens, Which Should Be Impossible From a Standing Start https://planckstandard.com/article/elite-track-cyclists-are-already-moving-at-0-4-meters-per-se.html https://planckstandard.com/article/elite-track-cyclists-are-already-moving-at-0-4-meters-per-se.html Wed, 16 Sep 2026 18:54:13 GMT Physics The trick is a backward-then-forward lurch of the whole body timed to the gate release. The model says the same rider could legally leave the line at 1.3 m/s, more than three times faster. High School Physics Says Friction Doesn't Depend on Speed https://planckstandard.com/article/high-school-physics-says-friction-doesn-t-depend-on-speed-it.html https://planckstandard.com/article/high-school-physics-says-friction-doesn-t-depend-on-speed-it.html Wed, 16 Sep 2026 15:45:16 GMT Physics It is the first experimental realization of ideal Amontons-Coulomb friction. Electron microscopes traced the speed dependence to wave-like crystal flaws called ripplocations, which disappear at high temperature. A 16-Minute Train Delay in Exeter Has Been Cited for 150 Years as the First Time the Sun Broke Human Technology https://planckstandard.com/article/a-16-minute-train-delay-in-exeter-has-been-cited-for-150-yea.html https://planckstandard.com/article/a-16-minute-train-delay-in-exeter-has-been-cited-for-150-yea.html Wed, 16 Sep 2026 15:45:15 GMT Physics A Lancaster-led team matched timetables, newspapers, sunspot logs and aurora reports to move the geomagnetic storm from October 18, 1841 to October 18, 1848. The earliest real case is now a March 1847 telegraph failure. Harvard Physicists Wrapped a Diamond Qubit in a Continuous Sound Wave and Tripled How Long It Holds a Quantum State https://planckstandard.com/article/harvard-physicists-wrapped-a-diamond-qubit-in-a-continuous-s.html https://planckstandard.com/article/harvard-physicists-wrapped-a-diamond-qubit-in-a-continuous-s.html Wed, 16 Sep 2026 05:58:55 GMT Physics Marko Lončar's lab 'dressed' a silicon-vacancy spin with phonons instead of microwave pulses. The technique works inside the phononic cavities that would link nodes of a chip-scale quantum network, letting sound do both jobs at once. Today's Solar Storm Warnings Give Earth 15 to 60 Minutes https://planckstandard.com/article/henon-cubesat-solar-storm-warning-15-minutes-to-3-hours.html https://planckstandard.com/article/henon-cubesat-solar-storm-warning-15-minutes-to-3-hours.html Wed, 16 Sep 2026 03:25:29 GMT Physics ESA's HENON mission, carrying the Imperial College MAGIC magnetometer, launches in early 2027 into a distant retrograde orbit far beyond the L1 point. Its lead scientist calls it 'a step change' and a pathfinder for the larger SHIELD mission. Atoms Normally Shine in Every Direction https://planckstandard.com/article/atoms-normally-shine-in-every-direction-darmstadt-physicists.html https://planckstandard.com/article/atoms-normally-shine-in-every-direction-darmstadt-physicists.html Tue, 15 Sep 2026 22:20:48 GMT Physics Reported in Physical Review Letters, the trick is timing: match the speed of the atoms' motion to the length of the light pulse they emit together, and up to 89% of the light goes one direction. No mirrors, no lattice, no chiral structure required. Physicists at PSI Fired Antimuons Into Superfluid Helium and Got a Cold, Parallel Beam of Muonium Atoms Out https://planckstandard.com/article/physicists-at-psi-fired-antimuons-into-superfluid-helium-and.html https://planckstandard.com/article/physicists-at-psi-fired-antimuons-into-superfluid-helium-and.html Tue, 15 Sep 2026 18:20:17 GMT Physics The equivalence principle has only ever been tested on ordinary matter. Muons live 2.2 microseconds, so the ETH Zurich team turned helium's chemical potential into an 'atomic cannon.' If muonium falls differently, it could point to a fifth force. Ten Thousand AI Agents Ran for 88 Hours and Found a Vortex That Spins Faster Than the Navier-Stokes Equations Can Handle https://planckstandard.com/article/ten-thousand-ai-agents-ran-for-88-hours-and-found-a-vortex-t.html https://planckstandard.com/article/ten-thousand-ai-agents-ran-for-88-hours-and-found-a-vortex-t.html Tue, 15 Sep 2026 05:33:36 GMT Physics The 166-page proof, formalized in Lean, shows the three-dimensional fluid equations can 'blow up' under smooth forcing, reaching infinite velocity at a point. NYU's Tristan Buckmaster and Anthropic's Levent Alpöge announced a related Euler result 12 hours earlier, and the fight over credit has already begun. A Satellite Engine That Runs on the Air That Is Trying to Drag It Down https://planckstandard.com/article/a-satellite-engine-that-runs-on-the-air-that-is-trying-to-dr.html https://planckstandard.com/article/a-satellite-engine-that-runs-on-the-air-that-is-trying-to-dr.html Tue, 15 Sep 2026 02:21:19 GMT Physics Francesco Romano's doctoral thesis pairs a mirror-like intake with a radio-frequency helicon thruster borrowed from MRI antenna design. It needs no fuel tank and no corrodible cathode, and the math says it could keep a satellite at 190 to 250 kilometers indefinitely, or orbit Mars at 120 kilometers.