The laws of physics state that you can’t create or destroy matter without also creating or destroying an equal amount of antimatter. So how are we here?
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Drop sodium in water, and a violent, even explosive reaction will occur. But quantum physics is needed to explain why.
There are ~400 billion stars in the Milky Way, and ~2 trillion galaxies in the visible Universe. But what if we aren’t typical?
Solving difficult visual puzzles seems to help the brain “rewire” itself by forming new neural pathways.
Hybrid working, robot fast food workers, and the rapid acceleration of NFTs are just the beginning.
Easily distracted? Try a “distractibility delay.”
Late-night shows, developed during the “golden age” of TV, are no longer as relevant in the age of streaming services and Donald Trump.
Movie soundtracks don’t just help us recall the plot of a film; they also allow us to better understand its meaning.
One hypothesis says that sleep helps “clean” the brain of damaged molecules and toxic proteins.
Known as orphaned planets, rogue planets, or planets without parent stars, these “outliers” might be the most common planet of all.
They are expected to be cheaper to build and even more reliable than today’s nuclear plants.
It peaks the nights of August 11–13, but it’s no longer the year’s most reliable meteor shower. Every year, beginning in mid-July, planet Earth commences passing through an enormous debris […]
In the early stages of the hot Big Bang, there were only free protons and neutrons: no atomic nuclei. How did the first elements form from them?
The sacrifices of early astronauts paved the way for Apollo’s successes, and so much more. In all of history, only 24 humans have ever escaped Earth’s gravity. The very first launch […]
Hidden variables aren’t ruled out, but they can’t get rid of quantum weirdness. Ever since the discovery of the bizarre behavior of quantum systems, we’ve been forced to reckon with […]
The conservation of energy is one of the most fundamental laws governing our reality. But in the expanding Universe, that’s just not true.
From high school through the professional ranks, physicists never tire of Newton’s second law.
Symmetries aren’t just about folding or rotating a piece of paper, but have a profound array of applications when it comes to physics.
The majority of the matter in our Universe isn’t made of any of the particles in the Standard Model. Could the axion save the day?
If light can’t be bent by electric or magnetic fields (and it can’t), then how do the Zeeman and Stark effects split atomic energy levels?
The highest-energy particles of all come from space, not human-made colliders. When it comes to the most energetic particle collisions of all, you might think that the Large Hadron Collider […]
Even with all the recent impacts we’ve seen, it might be more “foe” than “friend” to us.
We have pipelines for oil and natural gas. Why not water?
65 million years ago, an asteroid strike caused the 5th great mass extinction. Could we save Earth, today, from a similar event?
Often viewed as a theoretical, calculational tool only, the Lamb Shift proved their existence. If you spend enough time listening to theoretical physicists, it starts to sound like there are […]
If it weren’t for a subatomic quantum rule, our Universe would be vastly different. In many ways, our views of the distant Universe are the closest things we’ll ever get […]
Dennis Klatt developed trailblazing text-to-speech systems before losing his own voice to cancer.
NASA astronomer Michelle Thaller is coming back to Big Think’s studio soon to answer YOUR questions! Here’s all you need to know to submit your science-related inquiries.
When three wise men gifted baby Jesus with gold, frankincense, and myrrh, they had no idea one was made from colliding neutron stars.
The Earth that exists today wasn’t formed simultaneously with the Sun and the other planets. In some ways, we’re quite a latecomer.