New Scientist | Short Sharp Science | 28 Dec 2010
10. The entropy force: a new direction for gravity
Newton and Einstein described gravity, but not where it comes from. Has a physicist now found its root cause at last?
9. Magic numbers: A meeting of mathemagical tricksters
New Scientist visits a mind-stretching tribute to Martin Gardner, featuring everything from origami writing to tiles that go on forever.
8. How to create temperatures below absolute zero
Absolute zero sounds like an unbreachable limit, but there is a weird realm of negative temperatures that could reveal new states of matter.
7. 'Most beautiful' math structure appears in lab for first time
A complex form of mathematical symmetry linked to string theory has been glimpsed in the real world for the first time.
6. 'Impossible motion' trick wins illusion contest
See the gravity-defying illusion that won the 2010 Best Illusion of the Year Contest.
5. The strangest liquid: Why water is so weird
No other liquid behaves quite as oddly, but a controversial new theory may finally have wrung out water's secrets.
4. Enter the matrix: the deep law that shapes our reality
Quarks to card games, traffic to economics - does the success of random matrix theory hint at a deep pattern in nature underlying all these, and more?
3. A measure for the multiverse
Is our universe just one of many? The idea divides physicists, but now one researcher has found the first hint that the multiverse really exists.
2. First replicating creature spawned in life simulator
The organism, which inhabits the mathematical universe known as the Game of Life, might just tell us something about our own beginnings.
1: Knowing the mind of God: Seven theories of everything
We still don't have a theory that describes the fundamental nature of the universe, but there are plenty of candidates.
