Physics in Pictures by Topic
Material Science
What Color is this Bird?
The swallow tanager gets its brilliant blue and turquoise hues by harnessing the wavelike properties of light.
Don't Eat This! A Recipe for "Nuclear Pasta"
The interior of a neutron star plays host to strange phases of matter unlike anything seen here on Earth.
Polyhedral Peg, Round Hole
Finding the best way to pack objects into a container of a certain shape is harder than you might think.
Bouncing a Stream: The Kaye Effect
The non-Newtonian properties of liquid soap and shampoo fluid let them "bounce" as a stream. Try it at home!
Nanostructures Promise Iceproof Surfaces
A unique blend of nanoscale structures might let us create frost-proof surfaces
Color Charge: BZ Patterns
Belousov-Zhabotinsky (or BZ) patterns arise when molecules repeatedly gain and lose electrons in waves.
Color Charge: Plastics, Polymers, and Voronoi Diagrams
Learn about plastics and polymers with the newest page from our upcoming all-ages coloring book!
Making Art from Materials Science
Check out the winners of the Materials Research Society's 2016 "Science as Art" competition!
Diamonds are for Etching
Electron beam-induced etching (EBIE) conquers nature's hardest surface with ease.
Ice Slips Through Water
A layer of meltwater keeps ice moving through fluid with minimal turbulence.
Mysteries of the Glass Transition
Why do certain liquids transition into glass? There's no easy answer.
New Phase of Matter in Superconductor
High temperature superconductor spills secrets: a new phase of matter.
Liquid Art
These images captured the moment streams of liquid collide, bending the streams and forming beautiful images.
Aerogel: Fighting Fires
This photo illustrates the insulating properties of aerogel. The crayons on top of the aerogel are not melting, protected from the flame by a layer of aerogel.
Striped Superconductors
This psychedelic image is a graphical summary of a theory describing striped superconductors.
Tiny Antennas
These antennas could be used in devices that use light in place of the electrical signals.
Molecular Transistor
Physicists have made what they believe to be the first true single molecule transistor.
Bundle of Tiny Carbon Nanotubes
Crystal-like carbon nanotubes could serve as wiring for future computers.
Hollow Atoms
Physicists have removed the inner electrons from neon with a high energy X-ray laser, leaving behind a hollow atom shell.
Graphene Quilt
This quilt won't just keep you warm; it can teach you about the four electronic states central to understanding the properties of graphene.
Physics of Goo
Next time you put syrup on your pancakes remember that there is physics behind how the syrup flows.
Entangling Qubits
This small grey crystal of silicon inside a glass test tube contains 10 billion pairs of entangled spin qubits
Sea Urchin Teeth
This scanning electron microscope image shows the recently discovered calcite mineral bridges that connect the developing tooth plates in the sea urchin Eucidaris tribuloides, fascinating physicists with their strength.
Mussel Mucus
Mussels generate their own self healing sticky material and now scientists are able to make a synthetic version in the lab.
Atomic Transistors
If you could look deep inside an infrared LED and had microscopic vision, you might see the image above, showing the microscopic image of the surface of gallium arsenide (GaAs) and how the arrangement of atoms on the GaAs surface affect its electric field.
Nano Sized Light Switch
Imagine having a switch the size of a molecule. It could control a tiny electric circuit built from single atoms and molecules.
Snowflake Science
The sky is falling! No, those are just snowflakes falling from the clouds. In this Physics in Pictures explore what conditions make snowflakes and what all snowflakes have in common.
Smoke Rings in Water
A smoke-ring flow pattern - or vortex ring--can develop, pinch-off, and be regenerated, all without forces, when the flow is driven by chemical reactions.
The 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics is…
In 2004, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were looking for a metallic substance that could be used as a semiconductor. With the use of adhesive tape, their method of making graphene led to receiving the 2010 Nobel prize.
Perfect Spheres to Test Einstein
Einstein is looking at you through a near perfect glass sphere. In fact this is the most precise sphere that humans have ever created. The surface of this little marble is so smooth that any bumps or scratches are no higher than 40 atoms. Cool! But why?
Laser-Plasma Creates Electro-Optic Shocks
High power laser pulses create shock-waves and bubbles in plasma.
Magnetic Properties of Thin Films
This spectroscopic image shows what are called microwave-frequency magnetic resonances of an array of parallel, metallic thin film nanowire "stripes". The peak in the center reflects resonances occurring at the stripe edges. The strong horizontal bar of violet, black, and white, is due to resonances in the body of the stripes.
Micro-origami
When you dry your hands after washing them they don’t typically warp and wrinkle. That’s not the same with paper.
MHDPD-Magneto Hydro Dynamic Propulsion Device: The Experiment/ The Attenuation
Red and green dye reveals the turbulent fluid flows from the magneto hydro dynamic propulsion device.
Cornstarch Dimples
A vibrating cornstarch solution appears to come alive and grow fingers. A dimple in the fluid created by a burst of air expands into a deep hole.
Cracking Up
If you dropped a wineglass, you'd expect it to shatter, not skitter across the floor like a silver goblet.
My Cup Runneth Down
It might seem intuitively obvious that a layer of dense liquid resting on a less dense liquid is an unstable situation. What isn't as obvious is the complex way that liquids arranged in this manner and tend to move.
Steady Drip of Progress
It flows in rivulets, puddles in depressions, falls from the sky; you can even buy it at Costco--three-dimensional, "bulk" water is everywhere.
A 'Soapy' Solution
Researchers have been frustrated in their attempts to confirm the long-standing theory that describes how dyes mix in turbulent liquids.
Turbulence
The erratic, swirling fluid motion known as turbulence increases wind resistance, and airplane manufacturers go to great lengths to eliminate rough surfaces that promote it.
Crystal Clear
When an all-electron Wigner crystal (top) is squeezed too tightly, the electron wave functions begin to overlap (middle), and then create a quantum liquid (bottom).
Radioactive Hotdog?
A spark flying between a metal doorknob and your hand is an intricate chain of electrical events.
Polymers to Polyhedrons
Nanoparticles covered in stringy polymers might someday form the building blocks for drug delivery systems or disease assays.
A New Twist
The frictionless flow of atoms within solid helium may be confined to the axis of a screw dislocation, a spiral defect like the one in this crystal of silicon carbide.
Molecular Motion
The scanning tunneling microscope (STM) can make impressive images of single atoms and molecules on surfaces; now it has been used to measure a molecule's internal motion.
The Little Chill
Some lasers can burn through solids, but others, shined on the right materials, have a chilling effect.
In Synch
Electrons don't normally know one direction from another, so researchers were perplexed a few years ago when they found a cold plane of electrons suddenly choosing to conduct many times better in one direction than in the perpendicular one.
Trilobite Molecules
Researchers predicted the existence of a giant two-atom rubidium molecule with an electron cloud resembling a trilobite, the ancient, hard-shelled creature which lived in the Earth's seas over 300 million years ago.
Underwater Desert
Windblown dunes can engulf houses, roads, and airfields, but researchers have had a hard time studying them under controlled conditions.
Veins of Gold
Researchers dream of building crystals from the ground up to achieve tight control of their periodic structure.
Ingenious Algae
Many of the oceans' algae have evolved natural "sunscreens" as protection from the sun's ultraviolet rays.
The Whole Picture
Biologists dream of a point-and-shoot camera that can reveal details smaller than a wavelength of light in living cells.
Good Vibrations
Born of the marriage of two cutting edge techniques, a new method can image bundles of DNA strands by sensing vibrations within the molecules.
Crystal Cannibals
The crystallization process that turns a liquid to a solid is brutally competitive, according to an analysis of experiments performed on the Space Shuttle.
Cold Molecules
Physicists have cooled single atoms and molecules with two or three atoms to just a few thousandths of a degree above absolute zero, but it has proved hard to push larger molecules below about 10 degrees Kelvin.
Cold Atoms
This year's physics Nobel Prize went to three researchers who were the first to observe and study the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), a new phase of matter.
Crystal Clean
The chemical reactions that keep sulfur and other pollutants from leaving automobile tailpipes rely on catalysts in the form of microscopic particles dispersed within the large surface area of a porous material.
'Hole' Fiber Fights Cancer
A holey fiber may be able to plug the "holes" in the list of laser colors is affordable to most scientists.
Catch a Quasiperiodic Wave
Quasicrystals are unusual metallic alloys whose atoms are arranged in orderly patterns that are not quite crystalline.
Blinding Light
Light slows down when it enters a medium such as glass or water, and its new speed depends on the material.
Goldilocks Proteins
Milky-white cataracts, the world's leading cause of blindness, can occur when proteins in the lens of the eye aggregate, or collect, forming clumps.
