Science & Technology

Unlike everyday objects, quantum particles can be linked over long distances, behaving as one integrated whole, even though they are so widely separated they can’t communicate, even at the speed of light. Einstein hated the idea, which he called “spooky action at a distance.” Physicist Mark Alford explains the logic behind a famous experiment designed […]

Scientists find gravity very puzzling. For one thing, they don’t understand why it is so weak; that is, why it takes so much stuff (like a planet’s worth) to generate much gravitational force. Perhaps, they say, it is leaking out of our universe. Physicist Adam Archibald, MA ’14, explains how this could be and describes an […]

Pulsars are dead stars that emit intense beams of radio waves that sweep through space with the regularity of a clock. That’s strange enough but what’s even stranger, they sometimes speed up — in a universe where the norm is for everything to slow down. What could possibly give them the extra energy? S Kumar Mallavarapu, […]

One of the more unbelievable things they tell you in school is that if you drop two objects of different weights they will hit the ground at the same time. Is that really true? Michael Abercrombie, PhD ’16, explains.

There’s a small room in Rudolph Hall, at Washington University in St. Louis, that most students walk right past without noticing. But when anyone finds it, they usually insist all their friends come and look as well. It’s one of those special things about the university no student ever forgets, and this is the story […]

There’s a small room in Rudolph Hall that most students walk right past without noticing. But when anyone finds it, they usually insist all their friends come and look as well. It’s one of those special things about the university no student ever forgets, and this is the story of how it came to be there.