For more than a century, schoolbook physics has divided matter into neat categories like solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. A ...

When ice melts into water, it happens quickly, with the transition from solid to liquid being immediate. However, very thin materials do not adhere to these rules. Instead, an unusual state between ...

While universal formulas exist for every other phase transition (liquid-to-gas, gas-to-liquid, even solid-to-gas), no such formula exists for predicting when a solid melts into a liquid. A new study ...

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 ...

High school science misses a lot of the science researchers actually work with. For example, you learn that there are three states of matter—solid, liquid, and gas—but in advanced physics, things get ...