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Can data from the Large Hadron Collider snap string theory?
Close-up of ATLAS detector at CERN.

ATLAS’s wheel-like end-cap reveals the maze of sensors primed to catch proton smash-ups at the LHC. Researchers comb through billions of events in search of fleeting “ghost” tracks that might expose cracks in string theory.

(Image: Courtesy of CERN)

Can data from the Large Hadron Collider snap string theory?

Theoretical physicist Jonathan Heckman of the School of Arts & Sciences has put a spin on ideas related to testing string theory: Rather than looking to verify it, he and his collaborators sought a novel way to falsify it. Heckman and Ph.D. candidate Rebecca Hicks explain string theory, researchers’ quest to unify physics, and what their new paper puts forward.

10 min. read

Unlocking the mechanics of protein misfolding
Artist's interpretation of prion mechanics.

Mathieu Ouellet

Unlocking the mechanics of protein misfolding

An interdisciplinary team led by School of Engineering and Applied Science’s Lee C. Bassett and Dani Bassett, also of the School of Arts & Sciences, have studied the mechanical properties of prions, the mysterious shape-shifting proteins that are infamous for mad cow disease yet essential for yeast survival

5 min. read

Penn ATLAS shares 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics
Members of the Penn ATLAS team and others in front of the inner detector at the Large Hadron Collider.

Members of the Penn ATLAS team and others in front of the inner detector of ATLAS experiment.

(Image: ©CERN/Maximilien Brice)

Penn ATLAS shares 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics

The team, which includes Joseph Kroll, Evelyn Thomson, Elliot Lipeles, Dylan Rankin, and Brig Williams from the Department of Physics and Astronomy, is part of an expansive collaboration studying high-energy collisions from the Large Hadron Collider.

Michele W. Berger

2 min. read

For a better cup of coffee, look to physics
A kettle and pour-over coffee filter full of coffee grounds.

(On homepage) 

(Image: Courtesy of Ernest Park)

For a better cup of coffee, look to physics

Researchers from Penn have found new cost-effective ways to make a great cup of pour-over coffee using fewer beans. Their findings could potentially provide insights into similar systems such as waterfalls and surface erosion.

4 min. read