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The Universe didn’t begin with a bang, but with an inflationary “whoosh” that came before. Here are the biggest questions that still remain.

In all directions, at great distances, the Universe looks younger, more uniform, and less evolved. Does that mean Earth must be the center?

We can reasonably say that we understand the history of the Universe within one-trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. That’s not good enough.

For decades, theorists have been cooking up “theories of everything” to explain our Universe. Are all of them completely off-track?

When the Universe was first born, the ingredients necessary for life were nowhere to be found. Only our “lucky stars” enabled our existence.

From the Big Bang to black holes, singularities are hard to avoid. The math definitely predicts them, but are they truly, physically real?

Scientists will be able to make detailed “Claymation-like” movies of chemical reactions.

Life became a possibility in the Universe as soon as the raw ingredients were present. But living, inhabited worlds required a bit more.

In many ways, we are still novices playing with toy models seeking to understand the stars. 

Is gravity weaker over distances of billions of light-years?

From unexplained tracks in a balloon-borne experiment to cosmic rays on Earth, the unstable muon was particle physics’ biggest surprise.

Since its observation discovery in the 1990s, dark energy has been one of science’s biggest mysteries. Could black holes be the cause?

It could perform a speech recognition task with 78% accuracy.

Sam Smith — founder and former CEO of finnCap Group — argues that a culture of empathy will help superscale any business.

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.

By probing the Universe on atomic scales and smaller, we can reveal the entirety of the Standard Model, and with it, the quantum Universe.

Here on Earth, the Sun is our primary source of light, heat, and energy. But it also poses a grave threat to human civilization.

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.

Although early Earth was a molten hellscape, once it cooled, life arose almost immediately. That original chain of life remains unbroken.

No matter how good our measurement devices get, certain quantum properties always possess an inherent uncertainty. Can we figure out why?

Einstein’s relativity overthrew the notion of absolute space and time, replacing them with a spacetime fabric. But is spacetime truly real?

Quantum physics is starting to show up in unexpected places. Indeed, it is at work in animals, plants, and our own bodies. 

Some solar cells are so lightweight they can sit on a soap bubble.

To Fred Hoyle, the Big Bang was nothing more than a creationist myth. 75 years later, it’s cemented as the beginning of our Universe.

Atomic nuclei form in minutes. Atoms form in hundreds of thousands of years. But the “dark ages” rule thereafter, until stars finally form.

The concept of the warp drive is currently at odds with everything we know to be true about physics.

Long thought a pipe dream, scientists have discovered a drug that mimics the effects of exercise.

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?

All matter particles can act as waves, and massless light waves show particle-like behavior. Can gravitational waves also be particle-like?

If our Universe were born a little differently, there wouldn’t have been any planets, stars, galaxies, or chemically interesting reactions.