The melting of materials seems like a simple phenomenon. However, when their thickness is reduced to just a few atoms, ...

Quantum phase transitions represent fundamental changes between distinct quantum states of matter, driven not by thermal fluctuations but by quantum fluctuations at zero temperature. These transitions ...

New research offers clearer insight into how phase transitions unfold at the atomic scale in real materials. When ice turns into water, the change happens almost instantly. Once the melting ...

Collective models have long provided an essential framework for understanding the behaviour of atomic nuclei by treating them as systems of interacting particles that can exhibit coherent, macroscopic ...

Under formaldehyde-acetic acid condensationreaction conditions, the V4+ phase (VO)2P2O7 remains stable, while V5⁺ phases ...

After decades of looking, researchers have seen a string of atoms go through a 1D phase change so elusive that it could only happen inside a quantum simulator. “One motivation [for our experiment] is ...

Both a wildfire and activity of digital “neurons” exhibit a phase transition from an active to an absorbing phase. Once a system reaches an absorbing phase, it cannot escape from it without outside ...

Phase changes -- Stability and instability -- Bifurcations and catastrophes -- Percolation -- Random graphs -- Life origins -- Virus dynamics -- Cell structure ...

Using unconventional statistical mechanics to understand fluid dynamics, a professor helped solve a 150 year old physics problem of how turbulent fluids move through a pipe. In 1883 Osborne Reynolds ...

Human history is not governed by thermodynamic laws. Still, the vocabulary of metastability, tipping points, and critical ...