Smith College - Physics

05/25/2026

Yay - it’s summer!

Happy Summer to all you academics out there

05/13/2026

Exponents matter!

Gas Station Price Sign Using Scientific Notation

04/29/2026

But perhaps you prefer the taste test?

A paper in Nature Communications describes a quick, simple test to measure the strength and roast of black coffee. The approach could offer a reliable way to quickly assess coffee flavour characteristics without requiring complex sample preparation.

Link to the research in the comments.

04/28/2026

Soniferous Aether

04/28/2026

Researchers have demonstrated a superconducting quantum circuit that simulates tunneling in chemical reactions, revealing unexpected quantum effects in state transitions.

The work enables controlled study of quantum dynamics in chemistry-like energy landscapes and highlights superconducting circuits as powerful tools for exploring chemical processes.

Read more in PRX Quantum: https://go.aps.org/4cxPESo

04/21/2026

04/19/2026

What do you think?

Antony Valentini, a leading contemporary advocate and extender of the de Broglie–Bohm (pilot-wave) theory, has argued that standard quantum mechanics remains fundamentally incomplete because it offers only statistical predictions for ensembles and provides no description of individual quantum events or processes. In the pilot-wave picture, particles possess definite positions and trajectories at all times, guided by the real physical wave function that evolves according to the Schrödinger equation. The theory reproduces all standard quantum predictions exactly, yet supplies a fully deterministic, realist ontology without wave-function collapse, observers, or branching universes. Valentini’s own research on non-equilibrium distributions and “signal nonlocality” shows how the theory can be tested beyond the quantum equilibrium regime, opening the door to new experimental signatures and resolving the measurement problem by making every outcome the result of a continuous, local-in-configuration-space dynamics (though globally non-local). His stance represents one of the strongest modern realist challenges to both Copenhagen instrumentalism and Many-Worlds ontology, insisting that a complete theory must describe what actually happens to each individual system, not merely what we expect on average.

04/17/2026

What happens when fermions organize into density waves inside an ultracold quantum gas?

Scientists have developed a new technique to capture microscopic, lattice-level snapshots of these behaviors in an optical cavity. By visualizing atom-photon interactions and correlations across the system, the study offers a new way to probe matter at a fundamental level.

Read more in Physical Review Letters: https://go.aps.org/4v7YMW9

04/16/2026

04/16/2026

A new ultra-precise measurement of a bound electron’s magnetic moment could help probe the limits of the Standard Model.

Using a single hydrogen deuteride ion, researchers improved precision by 1000 times — and uncovered subtle deviations that may hint at new physics. Read the paper in Physical Review Letters: https://go.aps.org/47U3Eo6