Gravitational waves and spacetime ripples have so much more to do with the Universe than just merging black holes. “The years of searching in the dark for a truth that one […]
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It’s a fascinating idea, but how does it fare as a scientific theory? “Something is happening here and this is going to have an impact.” –Robert Dijkgraaf, on Verlinde’s work The […]
How looking at a single, distant galaxy cluster can show us the invisible mass filling our space like nothing else. “We find them smaller and fainter, in constantly increasing numbers, and […]
There are lots of properties inherent to particles, and while everyone has an antiparticle, not everyone is matter or antimatter. For every particle of matter that’s known to exist in […]
U.S. Congress heard expert testimony on a potentially devastating military threat from North Korea.
If you thought all we could see is all that’s out there, prepare to rethink everything you knew. “It’s hard to build models of inflation that don’t lead to a multiverse. […]
If the multiverse is real, why hasn’t our Universe, in a sea of infinite possibilities, run into another one at least once? The Universe we inhabit is vast, full of matter […]
When matter falls in, black holes grow. But Hawking radiation says that black holes decay. Who wins? “Maybe that is our mistake: maybe there are no particle positions and velocities, but […]
Meet LISA, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. Yes, it’s giant LIGO, in space, and it’s happening! “Einstein’s gravitational theory, which is said to be the greatest single achievement of theoretical […]
You know what a black hole is, and we’ve found a few so far. But oh, are there ever so many more out there! “Black holes are the seductive dragons of […]
It’s so much more than mass-energy equivalence; it’s the key to unlocking the quantum Universe. For hundreds of years, there was an immutable law of physics that was never challenged: […]
It isn’t just a theory; it’s the best way we have to make sense of everything that exists. “The physicist is like someone who’s watching people playing chess and, after watching […]
Think the periodic table is complicated? Now learn how each element in it was created. “It is the function of science to discover the existence of a general reign of order […]
They seem almost indistinguishable in some regards, but only one of them represents our physical Universe. When it comes to describing the physical world, we can do it anecdotally, as […]
Every star must eventually run out of fuel and die… but did you know the galaxy itself will come to an end someday? “Unless one says goodbye to what one loves, […]
If all we had were hydrogen and helium after the Universe were born, we wouldn’t be here today. “The discovery of deuterium and the marked differences in the physical and chemical […]
Asteroid strikes and supervolcano eruptions may yet have patterns to them, but the extinctions we’ve experienced appear to have occurred at random. Throughout the history of life on Earth, there have […]
Why the 2017 Nobel Prize isn’t the end, but the start, of something really, really big. “Wormholes are a gravitational phenomena. Or imaginary gravitational phenomena, as the case may be.” –Jonathan […]
The first detections were incredible. But now the real fun — and the real science — truly begins. On August 17, the signals from two merging neutron stars reached Earth after a journey of 130 […]
Surprisingly, the evidence points towards the existence of the unobservable multiverse. But it isn’t the answer you’re looking for. “We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that […]
BICEP2 scientist Brian Keating’s new book is honest and insightful, but just as notable for what it fails to recognize. Imagine what it’s like to be a scientist working on […]
No one yet knows what challenges will confront humans living in deep space.
This isn’t an XZibit joke; it’s a real scientific question. And the answer may be that it’s possible after all. “People who work every day are kind of scared of things […]
The Universe may defy our intuition, but that’s what science is for! If you take a look out at the Universe, and in every direction you look, you see objects rushing […]
65 million years, an impact wiped out 30% of all life on Earth. Could another one be imminent? “That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” […]
The hole in the ozone is shrinking, for sure, but to assess the whole layer, you need to look at the whole Earth. Throughout the history of life on Earth, there’s […]
LIGO and Virgo reveal a gravitational wave was detected on two different continents. Here’s what that means and why it matters.
Someday, the Sun will heat up enough to boil our planet’s oceans. Could moving the entire Earth away save us? “I would argue that in any habitable zone that doesn’t boil […]
This discovery finally points to the source of Earth’s precious heavy elements, also proves Einstein correct in more ways than one.
From what it’s expanding into to whether things are moving faster-than-light, this clears up some of our greatest misconceptions. “The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders […]