Sometimes we must look to the heavens to understand our own planet. In the 17th century, Johannes Kepler’s insight that planets move in elliptical orbits around the sun led to a deeper understanding ...
A crucial number that rules the universe goes big in a strange quantum material. The fine-structure constant is about 10 times its normal value in a type of material called quantum spin ice, ...
The fine structure constant is one of the most important natural constants of all. At TU Wien, a remarkable way of measuring it has been found—it shows up as a rotation angle. One over 137: This is ...