Physics in Action by Topic
Electricity & Magnetism
How Batteries Work
From turning on a lamp in your home to running solar panels, batteries play a large role in our everyday lives.
Shields Up: What's Holding Up Human Travel to Mars?
Getting humans to Mars safely means figuring out how to protect the body from the damage of cosmic rays.
Dressed to Impress: Attraction Between Electrons
By "dressing" the potential of electrons, researchers have taken what may be a big step toward room-temperature superconductivity!
Advances in Micro-Drones
Electrostatics help "bug bot" micro-drones cling to surfaces just like their biological counterparts!
Plasma Fairies: Femtosecond Laser Holograms
Lasers have enabled the creation of free-floating, interactive holograms!
Color-Tunable Elastic Fibers
By mimicking the structure of organisms like the Pollia condensata berry, researchers have invented an elastic fiber that changes color when stretched!
Ultrafast Aluminum Battery
It’s flexible, fast, nontoxic, doesn’t catch on fire, and its materials are inexpensive.
A Spin on Doppler
A twist on this physics principle can detect rotation in tornadoes, planets and more
Wirelessly Charged Electric Buses
A new bus route will feature electric buses that wirelessly charge while waiting for passengers.
Monitoring the Brain with Flexible Electronics
A new brain sensor developed by a team of researchers could represent a significant improvement in the ability to detect exactly where abnormal brain activity starts.
Magnets: Where Physics Meets High Fashion
Physics enthusiasts aren't always the people you turn to for advice on the latest fashion trends, but it's impossible not to give physics at least partial credit for the recent nail craze--magnetic nail polish.
Electronic Tattoos
Electronic sensors are used to gather all sorts of information. Perhaps you’ve seen some fitness monitors that look like arm bands, chest bands, or watches. There are brain monitors, some look like a swim cap with wires coming out. Mindball (a game using your brain waves) just has a single band you put around your head. Now imagine an electronic sensor that is wireless, flexible, and as inconspicuous as a temporary tattoo!
Record energies force new thoughts on lightning
Physicists using modern spacecraft have observed storms all over the planet and discovered that lightning can generate energies far in excess of what was previously thought possible. What's even more alarming is that some of them can generate anti-matter.
fMRI – The Future Mind Reader?
fMRI’s might be the future technology to read your thoughts and emotions. There have been claims that fMRI can determine if you are telling the truth, what image you are looking at, and perhaps in the future, what you are thinking , feeling, or your intending.
Pulling the Plug on Conventional Charging
Imagine walking into your bedroom and your cell phone starts charging immediately, you don't even have to bother plugging it in. These capabilities are being developed in scientists' labs around the country thanks to a technology known as inductive charging.
Seeing Lightning in the Ash
The eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland created an ash cloud that disrupted air traffic throughout Europe. And as if the magma and ash violently spewing out of the volcano's crater wasn't scary enough, the eruption also generates lightning!
Blowing in the Wind
Flying kites and tumbling plastic bags show that wind carries kinetic energy. The purpose of a windmill is to harness that energy. From the earliest versions 2,200 years ago in Persia to the Megawatt turbines today, windmills use physics to harness nature's chaotic fiery for human benefit.
Infrared Light
What do night vision goggles, land mine detectors, and studies of the universe have in common? In some way, all of them are connected to a small range of light sandwiched between visible light and microwaves on the electromagnetic spectrum—infrared light.
Lithium-ion Batteries
Lithium-ion batteries already power your cell phone and your laptop, and they may soon power your car. What makes these batteries so great?
Fusion Machines
In 1951, the astrophysicist Lyman Spitzer devised a way to contain a hot plasma—an ionized gas—with the hope of producing a sustained fusion reaction that could lead to electric power generation.
MRI Magic
Medical x-rays provide images of the body but utilize radiation that in large doses can damage cells. A completely different technology, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), emerged in the late 1970s.
Ferrofluid Fun
Have you ever seen a liquid magnet? If magnetic material is ground into an extremely fine powder, with a particle size of about 10 nanometers, and suspended in a liquid, the resulting magnetic suspension is called a ferrofluid.
