In the infant Universe, particle physics reigned supreme.
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When the Universe was first born, the ingredients necessary for life were nowhere to be found. Only our "lucky stars" enabled our existence.
If you're a massless particle, you must always move at light speed. If you have mass, you must go slower. So why aren't any neutrinos slow?
Simple physics makes hauling vast ice chunks thousands of miles fiendishly difficult — but not impossible.
The laws of physics don't prefer matter over antimatter. So how can we be certain that distant stars & galaxies aren't made of antimatter?
Einstein's relativity overthrew the notion of absolute space and time, replacing them with a spacetime fabric. But is spacetime truly real?
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?
The Big Bang's hot glow faded away after only a few million years, leaving the Universe dark until the first stars formed. Oh, the changes!
The hot Big Bang was an energetic, brilliantly luminous event. Today's Universe is alight with stars. But in between, the dark ages ruled.
In many ways, we are still novices playing with toy models seeking to understand the stars.
In 1974, Hawking showed that black holes aren't stable, but emit radiation and decay. Nearly 50 years later, it isn't just for black holes.
It will be immensely difficult for the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains to protect their competitive edge if they do not pursue a radical change.
Despite the Sun's high core temperatures, particles can't quite overcome their mutual electric repulsion. Good thing for quantum physics!
Ever since the Big Bang, cataclysmic events have released enormous amounts of energy. Here's the greatest one ever witnessed.
NASA's only flagship X-ray telescope ever, Chandra, still works and has no planned successor. So why does the President want to kill it?
As we pursue the leadership difference we seek, we attract fuel and generate heat. The trick is to avoid burnout.
In just a few seconds, a gamma-ray burst blasts out the same amount of energy that the Sun will radiate throughout its entire life.
Realizing that matter and energy are quantized is important, but quantum particles aren't the full story; quantum fields are needed, too.
Every power source involves trade-offs. Given the challenges of increasing demand and climate change, what is the future of energy?
While humanity has been skywatching since ancient times, much of our cosmic understanding has come about only recently. Very recently.
We don't know what causes Miyake events, but these great surges of energy can help us understand the past — while posing a threat to our future.
If our Universe were born a little differently, there wouldn't have been any planets, stars, galaxies, or chemically interesting reactions.
Quantum physics is starting to show up in unexpected places. Indeed, it is at work in animals, plants, and our own bodies.
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?
The "first cause" problem may forever remain unsolved, as it doesn’t fit with the way we do science.
You can only create or destroy matter by creating or destroying equal amounts of antimatter. So how did we become a matter-rich Universe?
Up until 2002, we thought that the heaviest stable element was bismuth: #83 on the periodic table. That's absolutely no longer the case.
Every time our Universe cools below a critical threshold, we fall out of equilibrium. That's the best thing that ever happened to us.
Every proton contains three quarks: two up and one down. But charm quarks, heavier than the proton itself, have been found inside. How?
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