In the earliest stages of the hot Big Bang, equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have existed. Why aren’t they equal today?
When the hot Big Bang first occurred, the Universe reached a maximum temperature never recreated since. What was it like back then?
Some 13.8 billion years ago, the Universe became hot, dense, and filled with high-energy quanta all at once. Here’s what it was like.
Cosmic inflation is the state that preceded and set up the hot Big Bang. Here’s what the Universe was like during that time period.
With such a vast Universe and raw ingredients that seem to be everywhere, could it really be possible that humanity is truly alone?
Space weather poses a tremendous threat to all satellites, knocking all computer systems offline. Is that a recipe for Kessler syndrome?
Dark energy is one of the biggest mysteries in all the Universe. Is there some way to avoid “having to live with it?”
From the earliest stages of the hot Big Bang (and even before) to our dark energy-dominated present, how and when did the Universe grow up?
In general relativity, white holes are just as mathematically plausible as black holes. Black holes are real; what about white holes?
The most common element in the Universe, vital for forming new stars, is hydrogen. But there’s a finite amount of it; what if we run out?
The Universe is 13.8 billion years old, going back to the hot Big Bang. But was that truly the beginning, and is that truly its age?
Practically all of the matter we see and interact with is made of atoms, which are mostly empty space. Then why is reality so… solid?
Holograms preserve all of an object’s 3D information, but on a 2D surface. Could the holographic Universe idea lead us to higher dimensions?
In the 20th century, many options abounded as to our cosmic origins. Today, only the Big Bang survives, thanks to this critical evidence.
No matter how good our measurement devices get, certain quantum properties always possess an inherent uncertainty. Can we figure out why?
At a fundamental level, only a few particles and forces govern all of reality. How do their combinations create human consciousness?
In all the Universe, only a few particles are eternally stable. The photon, the quantum of light, has an infinite lifetime. Or does it?
Our Universe requires dark matter in order to make sense of things, astrophysically. Could massive photons do the trick?
For some reason, when we talk about the age of stars, galaxies, and the Universe, we use “years” to measure time. Can we do better?
If you think of the Big Bang as an explosion, we can trace it back to a single point-of-origin. But what if it happened everywhere at once?
Is the Universe finite or infinite? Does it go on forever or loop back on itself? Here’s what would happen if you traveled forever.
Life arose on Earth very early on. After a few billion years, here we are: intelligent and technologically advanced. Where’s everyone else?
The first world that humans should inhabit beyond the Earth is the Moon, not Mars. Here’s why terraforming our lunar neighbor is so appealing.
Many contrarians dispute that cosmic inflation occurred. The evidence says otherwise.
And either way, is energy or information conserved? When two things in the Universe that “always” occur meet one another, how do you know which one will win? Gravitational waves, […]
Scalars, vectors, and tensors come up all the time in science. But what are they? One of the major goals of science is to describe our reality as accurately as possible. […]
Are dark matter and dark energy both two sides of the same coin? When it comes to the Universe, what you can easily see isn’t always reflective of all there is. […]
The Big Bang is our accepted origin of the Universe. But is there another possibility? Since the mid-1960s and the discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background, the Big Bang has […]
We’ve argued over ideology for far too long. It’s time to pick a better route to prosperity. In every civilized society around the world, there’s a trade-off that must be […]
Forget the speed of light or the electron’s charge. This is the physical constant that really matters. Why is our Universe the way it is, and not some other way? There […]