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Physics World Weekender: Celebrating the muon

Earth, wind and water: how cosmic muons are helping to study volcanoes, cyclones and more

High-quality muon beam holds promise for future collider

Record-breaking 100 keV beam could enable next-generation experiments

Muon g-2 achieves record precision, but theoretical tensions remain

Any discovery of new physics is on hold, at least for now

Ralf Kaiser and David Mahonof Lynkeos Technology

Muons: probing the depths of nuclear waste

An illustration of the muon's anomalous magnetic moment

The muon’s magnetic moment exposes a huge hole in the Standard Model – unless it doesn’t

Research updates

Image of yellow atoms scattered around a trap represented by a red shadow, next to an image of the same yellow atoms with their positions "frozen" by applying a lattice and laser beams

Physicists take ‘snapshots’ of quantum gases in continuous space

Illustration of how CP violation was detected by LHCb

CP violation in baryons is seen for the first time at CERN

Artist's representation of a quantum clock, shown as a traditional clock dial at the centre of a circle of wavepackets. A beam of light from the clock to one of the wavepackets represents measurement

How to keep the second law of thermodynamics from limiting clock precision

Spacecraft can navigate using light from just two stars

Observations from space and Earth reveal location and heading of New Horizons

Terahertz optoacoustics allows real-time monitoring of blood sodium levels

Researchers find a “cool” way to mitigate background water signals and demonstrate non-invasive blood ion monitoring in living mice

Hyperdisorder appears in pigment patterns on squid skin

Phenomenon also occurs in critical systems found in statistical physics and is directly linked to the animal’s growth

Astronomers observe the biggest booms since the Big Bang

"Extreme nuclear transients" from tidally disrupted heavy stars release more energy than 100 supernovae

Acoustic rainbows emerge from novel sound-scattering structure

New architecture could be used to create tailored devices that emit or receive only certain frequencies of sound

Black holes could act as cosmic supercolliders

Particles orbiting a black hole could collide at colossal energies, generating collision products that may offer valuable insights for particle physics

Artificial intelligence

Read our collection of news, views and features about the ever-growing world of AI

Physics World podcasts

Oak Ridge’s Quantum Science Center takes a multidisciplinary approach to developing quantum materials and technologies

Photo of Sara Alderweireldt at CERN. She's standing on a lawn under bright blue skies with a section of beamline behind her. Lettering on the beamline reads "accelerating science" in English and French

Inside ATLAS: Sara Alderweireldt explains how the CERN experiment homes in on new physics

Making science careers more accessible to people with disabilities

The latest opinion and reviews

Leprechauns on tombstones: your favourite physics metaphors revealed

Meteor falling to earth over a desert landscape

Space rock quest: meet the people hunting meteorites

Iain Dale-Trotter reviews The Meteorite Hunters: On the Trail of Extraterrestrial Treasures and the Secrets Inside Them by Joshua Howgego

United we stand: why physicists must quit their siloes

Honor Powrie explains why the STEMM community needs to work together

Explore our two regular podcast series! Physics World Weekly looks at the latest events and headlines in physics, as well as featuring short interviews with scientists and our team of journalists. Physics World Stories takes a more in-depth look at a topic.

Latest news

Diversity in UK astronomy and geophysics declining, finds survey

Diversity in the UK tech sector must improve, says report

People
News

Norwegian-US Nobel laureate Ivar Giaever dies aged 96

Explore more of our recent articles

The rise of women in quantum science in India and the legacy of Satyendra Nath Bose

Tanusri Saha-Dasgupta and Rupamanjari Ghosh celebrate the women at the forefront of quantum science in India

Physics meets fashion as bioluminescent dress debuts at Paris Haute Couture Week

The spectacular “living” garment was part of Iris van Herpen’s new fashion collection – Sympoiesis

Officials at the ECMWF groudbreaking ceremony

Construction begins on new £93m European weather-forecasting headquarters

New facility at the University of Reading will carry out meteorological research and forecasting

New experiment challenges Bohmian quantum mechanics

Alternative deterministic interpretation generally predicts the same results as standard theories – but maybe not this time

Dongqing Lin and Magnus Jonsson in the laboratory

Switchable metasurfaces deliver stronger light control

Optimizing the geometric parameters of polymer nanoantenna arrays significantly improves the performance of optical metasurfaces

A diagram of the new telescope-microscope next to images of live cells imaged using fluorescence and bioluminescence. Objects in the fluorescence image are indistinct and blurred and overlaid with a sheen of green. Objects in the bioluminescence image show up sharply in blue against a black background.

New ‘telescope-microscope’ detects extremely low levels of light

Quantum image sensor-based device could be used to observe living cells

mircometre-sized model of the Sorbonne Chapel

Vilnius University physicist creates micron-sized model of the Sorbonne Chapel

The model is 275,000 times smaller than the real Sorbonne Chapel

Electric field treatment restores movement to rats with spinal injuries

An ultrathin implant that delivers stimulation directly to the spinal cord significantly improved motion and sensation in injured rats

Two diagrams, one showing a "pie slice" cross-section of the Earth with the core on the inside and the lower mantle, upper mantle and thin crust above it, and the other showing a zoomed-in image of an area just above the lower mantle-core boundary. The zoomed-in image contains two scenarios. The first scenario shows the post-perovskite randomly oriented and labelled "no mantle flow" and "no discontinuity". The second shows the post-perovskite aligned and is labelled "mantle flow" and "D" discontinuity".

Mysterious seismic wave speed-up deep within Earth’s mantle explained at last

A phase change in post-perovskite materials at the so-called D” discontinuity is also evidence for long-predicted slow, convective flows in the mantle itself

A photo of Joseph Carroll standing in a laboratory next to a large machine with many cables, pipes and valves running into it. He's wearing a white shirt and black jeans, and the walls of the lab are covered in white acoustic insulation material

New microscopy technique can identify topological superconductors

Scanning-tunnelling microscope with a superconducting tip could help uncover materials for next-generation quantum computers

All the attendees of the Helgoland conference

Helgoland 2025: the inside story of what happened on the ‘quantum island’

Matin Durrani reports from the Helgoland 2025 conference marking 100 years of quantum mechanics

Cancer centres streamline radiotherapy workflow with SunCHECK QA platform

Radiation oncology departments can save hundreds of QA hours each year with the SunCHECK quality management platform

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Featured employer

Physics World Jobs offers a range of opportunities for jobseekers with a background in physics or engineering. At all stages of your career, we can help find the job for you

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

For more than 60 years, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has applied science and technology to make the world a safer place. Its defining responsibility is ensuring the safety, security and reliability of the nation’s nuclear deterrent

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Featured webinar

Tune into online presentations that allow expert speakers to explain novel tools and applications

Development and application of a 3-electrode setup for the operando detection of side reactions in Li-Ion batteries

6 August 2025

Join this webinar by The Electrochemical Society. Looking for an easy to implement cell setup that enables the quantitative and qualitative analysis of parasitic side reactions taking place in lithium-ion batteries? We’ve got you!

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Featured event

Stay up to date with the latest international conferences, symposia and exhibitions for interdisciplinary scientists working across academic research and industry

AVS 71st International Symposium & Exhibition

21 — 26 September 2025 | Charlotte, NC, US

The AVS International Symposium and Exhibition addresses cutting edge issues associated with materials, processing, and interfaces in both the research and manufacturing communities. The weeklong symposium fosters a multidisciplinary environment that cuts across traditional boundaries between disciplines, featuring papers from AVS Technical Division, groups, focus topics on emerging technologies and more. An extensive exhibition of related equipment, tools, materials, supplies, chemicals, services, consulting, technical literature and new technologies are showcased during the week.

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