Science

Rain? Or shine? Why do the apps get it wrong so often?Rob Watkins/Alamy If you hung out laundry, visited a beach or fired up the barbecue this week, you will almost certainly have consulted a weather app first. And you might not have been entirely happy with the results. Which raises the question: why are weather apps so rubbish? Even meteorologists like Rob Thompson at the University of Reading in the UK aren’t immune to these frustrations; he recently saw a dry night predicted and left his garden cushions out, only to find them soaked in the morning. It’s a classic example – when we complain about poor forecasts, it’s normally unexpected rain or snow we’re talking about. Our expectations – both of the apps and the weather – are a big part of the issue here. But that’...

An artist’s representation of the extreme engineMillen lab The hottest engine in the world is minuscule, reaches seemingly impossible efficiencies and could approximate nature’s tiniest machines. A thermodynamic engine is the simplest machine that can reveal how the laws of physics dictate the transformation of heat into useful work. It has a hot part and a cold part, which are connected by a “working fluid” that contracts and expands in cycles. Molly Message and James Millen at King’s College London and their colleagues built one of the most extreme engines ever by using a microscopic glass bead in place of the working fluid. They used an electric field to trap and levitate the bead in a small chamber made from metal and glass that was almost completely devoid of...

The summer capstone project is a chance for Columbia Climate School’s Climate and Society students to put academics into action. After a year spent studying subjects like climate mitigation, adaptation and justice, students partner with an organization—this year’s participants included the NYC Department of Health, the National Institute of Urban Affairs, Capgemini, H2Global, the Climate Imaginarium and others—to tackle critical climate challenges in the real world.  This month, students had a chance to showcase their projects, which offer impactful solutions in health, the arts, policy, climate finance and urban resilience. Details on some of the projects appear below. Client:      NYC Health DepartmentProject:    Be a Buddy Pilot EvaluationAdvisor:   Rafael RamosStudents: Yongcheng...

Can we add quantumness to the internet to make it more secure?NicoElNino / Alamy The US military has launched an initiative to determine how quantum devices and particles could augment traditional communication networks – like those that make up the internet – to make them more secure. Quantum networks that share information via particles’ quantum states are extremely secure. For instance, the messages these states carry cannot be surreptitiously copied, thanks to the properties of quantum physics. Because of this, several quantum communication networks have already been built around the world. But a fully quantum internet has been hindered because we don’t know how to build some of the devices crucial for making it work. Instead of waiting for all of the outstand...

In June, at a conference set in the picturesque Italian town of Campagna, south-east of Naples, two physicists in a seemingly endless argument over a long-sought theory of fundamental reality caught my attention. From the sidelines, an unassuming figure politely interrupted them. “I’ve got a slide that might help. Can I put it up?” asked Frank Wilczek. The slide, concisely describing the realms in which this theory may act, swiftly ended the dispute. Among the many luminaries jousting in Campagna, I realised, perhaps only Wilczek had the breadth of expertise to untangle their confusion. Wilczek is one of the most original physicists alive today, whose achievements seem too numerous for a single mind. He revealed the true workings of one of the four fundamental forces ...