A third kind of magnetism wins Europe's top physics prize

For a century, textbooks said magnets came in two types. Libor Šmejkal, Jairo Sinova, and Tomáš Jungwirth proved there's a third — altermagnetism — hiding in plain sight. Their discovery, honored with the 2026 Europhysics Prize, could lead to faster, more efficient computer memory. Work centered in Mainz and Prague.