Physicist Says Electrons Spin in Quantum Physics After All. Here's Why

Science Alert - January 28, 2023

'Spin' is a fundamental quality of fundamental particles like the electron, invoking images of a tiny sphere revolving rapidly on its axis like a planet in a shrunken solar system. Only it isn't. It can't. For one thing, electrons aren't spheres of matter but points described by the mathematics of probability. For the better part of a century, physicists have wrestled with the results of experiments that suggest the smallest pieces of reality don't look or behave anything like objects in our everyday lives.

Spin is one of these qualities. Like a whirling cue ball colliding with the inner wall of a billiard table, it carries angular momentum and influences the direction of a moving particle. Yet, unlike the cue ball, a particle's spin can never speed up or slow down Ð rather, it's always confined to a set value. To make the basic nature of matter even harder to picture, consider the fact an electron's size is so small that it effectively lacks volume. If it were large enough to have volume, the negative charge spread throughout that space would push on itself, tearing the electron apart.

Ripples in fabric of universe may reveal start of time PhysOrg - January 20, 2023

Scientists have advanced in discovering how to use ripples in space-time known as gravitational waves to peer back to the beginning of everything we know. The researchers say they can better understand the state of the cosmos shortly after the Big Bang by learning how these ripples in the fabric of the universe flow through planets and the gas between the galaxies.

Scientists Have Discovered an Exotic Magnetic State of Matter Sci Tech Daily - February 24, 2022

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have discovered a long-predicted magnetic state of matter called an "antiferromagnetic excitonic insulator." Broadly speaking, this is a novel type of magnet. Since magnetic materials lie at the heart of much of the technology around us, new types of magnets are both fundamentally fascinating and promising for future applications.

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