The Saugus Public Library got quite a show Tuesday morning when “Atomic Allen” from Mad Science stopped by to teach everyone about fire and ice. “We’re going to have some fun with science, but I also ...

Physicists are learning to treat light not as an untouchable beam that simply passes through matter, but as something that ...

In 2025, Popular Science continued our mission to demystify our weird world for millions of readers. We debunked myths about ...

The fifth state of matter—the ultracold Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC)—has been an invaluable tool in unlocking the secrets ...

Researchers at TU Wien have developed a one-dimensional “quantum wire” using a gas of ultracold atoms. In this system, both ...

Controlling light at dimensions thousands of times smaller than the thickness of a human hair is one of the pillars of modern ...

Despite the similarities, Langmuir emphasised that this pump was fundamentally different from Gaede’s; the cold walls of the ...

As the cold season ends in the Southern Hemisphere and we fold away our favorite wool jumpers and silk scarves, some fascinating material science is about to unfold quietly in our wardrobes. Subtle ...

In spaces smaller than a wavelength of light, electric currents jump from point to point and magnetic fields corkscrew through atomic lattices in ways that defy intuition. Scientists have only ever ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Imagine a town with two widget merchants. Customers prefer cheaper widgets, so the merchants must compete to set the lowest price.

For nearly 80 years, the specter of nuclear war has haunted humankind, shaping foreign policy, military strategy, and international relations. The principle of “mutually assured destruction” (MAD) has ...

Atomic clocks will only see a loss of 1 second in accuracy over a period of 10 million years. They are used in multiple ways, including the GPS in your car. Now researchers have found a way to bypass ...