Emily Conover

Washington, D.C.

Physics Reporter at Science News

Physics reporter at @sciencenews. Find me on threads (@emcconover) and bluesky (@econover.bsky.social) She/her

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Articles

‘Magic’ states empower error-resistant quantum computing

2 days ago | sciencenews.org | Emily Conover

Quantum computers have performed the full slate of tricks needed for robust computation. And it all came down to a little magic. In a pair of papers submitted June 17 at arXiv.org, researchers generated conditions called “magic states,” crucial components of quantum computations. And those magic states were high-quality enough to allow the computers to resist errors, one of the biggest bugaboos of quantum computers.
A Supreme Court ruling on nuclear waste spotlights U.S. storage woes

1 week ago | sciencenews.org | Emily Conover

Nuclear power is key to the United States’ plans to satisfy the nation’s growing energy needs. But there’s an unresolved problem: the waste it produces. Despite plans for an ambitious new generation of nuclear reactors that could fuel AI data centers and more, a solution to storing the dangerous, long-lived refuse remains elusive. The issue is so thorny that the Supreme Court has now weighed in.
Rainbows of sound are a reality thanks to a new device

2 weeks ago | sciencenews.org | Emily Conover

No rainstorm is needed for this rainbow — it’s made out of sound. Using an oddly shaped plastic device, scientists have created an acoustic rainbow, separating white noise according to its various frequencies, or pitches. Just as a typical rainbow separates colors into different spatial locations, different pitches are directed to distinct positions around the device, the researchers report June 11 in Science Advances.
Muons’ magnetism matches theory, easing an enduring physics conundrum

3 weeks ago | sciencenews.org | Emily Conover

One of the most enduring mysteries of particle physics may be finally resolved, two new studies suggest. The oddities of muons, subatomic particles that are relatives of electrons, are starting to make sense. Muons have an internal magnetism that scientists have struggled to pin down: Measurements of a magnetic quirk of the particles have long clashed with theoretical predictions.
Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ plan has a major obstacle: Physics

1 month ago | sciencenews.org | Emily Conover

In sports, the best offense is often a good defense. It’s not clear if the same applies in nuclear war. In the face of nuclear threats from adversaries like Russia, China and North Korea, some politicians are clamoring for a system to reliably protect the United States from incoming missiles.
Scientists used a levitating magnet to hunt for dark matter

1 month ago | sciencenews.org | Emily Conover

In a first-of-its-kind test, scientists used a levitated magnet to search for dark matter, the unidentified substance believed to be present throughout the cosmos. If dark matter is made up of ultralight particles, it could behave like a wave that would subtly jostle the magnet. Although no signs of such jostling appeared, a few tweaks could improve the experiment’s sensitivity to dark matter’s potential influence, the researchers report in a paper to be published in Physical Review Letters.
The unsung women of quantum physics get their due

1 month ago | sciencenews.org | Emily Conover

Women in the History of Quantum PhysicsEdited by Patrick Charbonneau, Michelle Frank, Margriet van der Heijden and Daniela MonaldiCambridge Univ., $49.99In the 1920s, when quantum mechanics was young, physicists Jane Dewey and Laura Chalk performed some of the first experimental tests of the theory, based on a phenomenon called the Stark effect.
As quantum mechanics turns 100, a new revolution is under way

1 month ago | sciencenews.org | Emily Conover

One hundred years ago on a quiet, rocky island, German physicist Werner Heisenberg helped set in motion a series of scientific developments that would touch nearly all of physics. There, Heisenberg developed the framework of quantum mechanics. At the time, quantum theory was just a loose collection of ideas about the quirks of physics on the scale of atoms. In June 1925, the 23-year-old Heisenberg cloistered himself on the island of Helgoland, in search of relief from a nasty attack of hay fever.
Physicists explain how cheese rosettes form

1 month ago | sciencenews.org | Emily Conover

The Swiss cheese known as Tête de Moine or “monk’s head” is served in a peculiar fashion. A specially designed blade scrapes off thin slices of the cheese wheel, rotating around its surface like a hand of a clock. This process forms thin, frilly cheese rosettes. Now, scientists have uncovered the physics behind these cheese flowers. It all comes down to the friction between the cheese and the blade, physicist Jishen Zhang and colleagues report in a paper accepted to Physical Review Letters.
Physics explains why clapping sounds like it does

2 months ago | snexplores.org | Emily Conover

acoustic: Having to do with sound or hearing. colleague: Someone who works with another; a co-worker or team member. develop: To emerge or to make come into being, either naturally or through human intervention, such as by manufacturing. dimension: Descriptive features of something that can be measured, such as length, width or time. Helmholtz resonator: Named for the 19th century German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz, this is basically some hollow volume of air with a short, narrow neck.