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Energy
Many reactions emit energy, often in large amounts, but cosmic efficiency is another metric altogether. Here's how to maximize your output.
Barriers to energy abundance — and how to overcome them — were front and center at Progress Conference 2025.
Despite the Sun's high core temperatures, atomic nuclei repel each other too strongly to fuse together. Good thing for quantum physics!
A recent paper in the journal Physical Review Letters claims to prove that a "kugelblitz" is not possible.
When leaders embrace positive personal energy, everyone feels the benefits — in trust, innovation and creativity.
During the industrial era the cost of artificial light fell off a cliff — and the road to illumination was paved with ingenuity and slaughter.
Figuring out the answer involved a prism, a pail of water, and a 50 year effort by the most famous father-son astronomer duo ever.
The term "zero-point energy" has at least two meanings, one that is innocuous and one that is a great deal sexier (and scammier).
McDermitt Caldera, the site of an ancient volcanic eruption, straddles the border of Oregon and Nevada.
Science fiction met nuclear fission when Hungarian physicist Leó Szilárd pondered the explosive potential of nuclear energy.
All biological systems are wildly disordered. Yet somehow, that disorder enables plant photosynthesis to be nearly 100% efficient.
The biggest nuclear blast in history came courtesy of Tsar Bomba. We could make something at least 100 times more powerful.
Einstein's most famous equation is E = mc², which describes the rest mass energy inherent to particles. But motion matters for energy, too.
Quantum mechanics has taught us that even empty space contains energy. "Negative energy" is the state of having less energy than empty space.
Some solar cells are so lightweight they can sit on a soap bubble.
Ever since the Big Bang, cataclysmic events have released enormous amounts of energy. Here's the greatest one ever witnessed.
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Economist Tyler Cowen says there are good reasons to be crypto-skeptical.
It could one day fuel nuclear fusion reactors.
The war in Ukraine is unlikely to trigger a catastrophic nuclear meltdown. Physics and smart engineering are the reasons why.
Should you blast the A/C even when you're not at home?
The new material may make marine uranium extraction economically feasible.
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Pro-athletes are entertainers. Being healthy means something else.
Scientists turn to nature to improve a ubiquitous building material.
A two-dimensional material made entirely of carbon called graphene won the Nobel Prize in 2010. Graphyne might be even better.
There's a speed limit to the Universe: the speed of light in a vacuum. Want to beat the speed of light? Try going through a medium!
“I thought, why not direct these high-power beams, instead of into fusion plasma, down into rock and vaporize the hole?”
From the explosions themselves to their unique and vibrant colors, the fireworks displays we adore require quantum physics.
It has no moving parts and could allow us to tap into renewable energy year round.
Now they're pointing the way to future battery technologies.
The site will be the first working example of a geological disposal facility.