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Particle Physics
Protons and neutrons are composite structures: made of quarks and gluons. But knowing they had substructure goes back long before that.
Yes, "the laws of physics break down" at singularities. But relativity itself would have to be wrong for black holes to not possess them.
Two discrete symmetries, charge conjugation and parity, must be violated together for our Universe to exist. We haven't found enough of it.
CERN's Large Hadron Collider superseded Fermilab's TeVatron in 2008, but now nears the end of its run. The ambitious FCC project comes next.
For decades, theorists have been cooking up "theories of everything" to explain our Universe. Are all of them completely off-track?
When what we predict and what we measure don't add up, that's a sign there's something new to learn. Could it be a new fundamental force?
The combination of charge conjugation, parity, and time-reversal symmetry is known as CPT. And it must never be broken. Ever.
Smashing things together at unprecedented energies sounds dangerous. But it's nothing the Universe hasn't already seen, and survived.
The fundamental building blocks of reality are indivisible: quanta that cannot be split or divided. Our understanding remains incomplete.
Before we formed stars, atoms, elements, or even got rid of our antimatter, the Big Bang made neutrinos. And we finally found them.
A century ago, quantum physics overthrew our view of a deterministic Universe. A profound 21st century theorem closes the door even further.
At the upper limits of what's energetically possible, cosmic rays still persist. What happens if a human gets hit by the most energetic one?
Our great hope is that today's indirect, astrophysical evidence will someday lead to successful direct detection. What if that's impossible?
The Sun often produces solar flares and coronal mass ejections, but a rare solar radiation storm made the 2026's first great auroral show.
In general relativity, matter and energy curve spacetime, which we experience as gravity. Why can't there be an "antigravity" force?
The highest-energy particles could be a sign of new, unexpected physics. But the simplest, most mundane explanation is particularly iron-ic.
Our Standard Model of the Universe, for both particle physics and cosmology, remains intact for now. When will its foundations crack?
Scientific truths remain true regardless of belief. These 10, despite contrary claims, remain vitally important as 2025 draws to a close.
Some vital, key ingredients must be in place for the Universe to make more matter than antimatter. The LHC took us one step closer in 2025.
As the lightest baryon in the Universe, the proton is thought by many to be eternally stable. But if it isn't, can we observe it decaying?
Quantum mechanics was first discovered on small, microscopic scales. 2025's Nobel Prize brings the quantum and large-scale worlds together.
Proposed over 2000 years ago by Democritus, the word atom literally means uncuttable. Revived in 1803, today's "atoms" can indeed be split.
The Holy Grail of physics is a Theory of Everything: where a single equation describes the whole Universe. But maybe there simply isn't one?
Since even before Einstein, physicists have sought a theory of everything to explain the Universe. Can positive geometry lead us there?
Across all wavelengths of light, the Sun is brighter than the Moon. Until we went to the highest energies and saw a gamma-ray surprise.
Throughout history, "free energy" has been a scammer's game, such as perpetual motion. But with zero-point energy, is it actually possible?
A next-generation collider is required for studying particle physics at the frontiers. Here's the fastest, cheapest way to get it done.
Amplifying the energy within a laser, over and over, won't get you an infinite amount of energy. There's a fundamental limit due to physics.
Realizing that matter and energy are quantized is important, but quantum particles aren't the full story; quantum fields are needed, too.
With the right material at the right temperature and a magnetic track, physics really does allow perpetual motion without energy loss.