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Physics
The best books, calendar, accessories and more are all just one click away. Every year, there are no shortage of wonderful, exciting, informative gifts you could get for those who matter […]
A special isotope of plutonium is necessary for missions to Mars and beyond. But we don’t have enough, and aren’t making more fast enough. As 2018 comes to a close, NASA […]
With the right material at the right temperature and a magnetic track, physics allows you to never lose energy. The idea of levitating off the ground has been a staple of […]
The expanding Universe really is accelerating, and no dusty scenario can explain it. 20 years ago, our understanding of the Universe underwent a revolution. For generations, we had known the Universe […]
Einstein’s explanation is the only one that works. When Newton first proposed the law of universal gravitation, it marked the very first time that we realized the same rule governing how […]
We can go to deeper and deeper levels, finding more fundamental quantities as we do. But is there a truly fundamental quantity? What is the Universe, at a fundamental level, […]
It’s not simply Hubble’s Law anymore, but the real history is far more complex than the stories you’ve heard. One of the most mind-blowing facts in our existence is that space […]
The cosmic story of us, from before the Big Bang until today, is a story that all of us share. Enjoy it, in just 200 words. In the beginning, there was […]
The answer has nothing at all to do with the Higgs boson. In this Universe, there are very few fundamental properties that cannot be derived from something simpler. The rules governing […]
The Large Hadron Collider allowed us to complete the Standard Model. Even so, what we have is incomplete. Here’s what could come next. The Large Hadron Collider is the most powerful […]
Your fate is only rarely determined at birth. Ultimately, every star has a chance to get there. Three times in the past 1,000 years, a portion of humanity has looked up […]
We speak about it, argue over it, and even fight wars for it. We know it when we see it. But just what is energy, anyway? When it comes to being […]
If antimatter falls up instead of down, countless sci-fi dreams will become scientific reality. One of the most astonishing facts about science is how universally applicable the laws of nature […]
Representation matters. Meet five stellar women in physics who were unjustly denied their place in history. Nobel season is now over, with another year in the books of celebrating the scientists […]
They may have arisen less than 200 million years after the Big Bang, but the Universe was a very different place back then. When you look out beyond the Milky Way […]
No matter what Martin Rees or anyone else says, physics dictates that the world is safe. The Large Hadron Collider is the world’s most powerful particle accelerator. An aerial view of […]
Planets can ‘discover’ nuclear power on their own, naturally, without any intelligence. Earth did it 1.7 billion years before humans. If you were hunting for alien intelligence, looking for a surefire […]
On September 27, 1972, scientists performed the first test of Bell’s inequality. God does play dice with the Universe, after all. One of the most puzzling and counterintuitive aspects of quantum […]
If the Sun is 93 million miles away, why does sunlight filtering through the clouds or the trees spread out? Rays of sunshine are one of those natural sights that leave […]
The world’s greatest clockmaker sent a clock to the new world, and everything went haywire. The reason why will shock you. For millennia, humanity’s one-and-only reliable way to keep time was […]
LIGO’s enormous arms contract and expand as gravitational waves pass through them. But, puzzlingly, so does the light within them. For the past three years, humanity has known a new kind […]
Of all the experiments performed and measurements made involving fundamental particles, none has ever violated the Standard Model. Until now. If there’s one thing you can count on physicists for, it’s […]
Every physical theory has constants in it. The gravitational constant is remarkably uncertain. When we first began formulating physical laws, we did so empirically: through experiments. Drop a ball off […]
Dark matter is our leading theory for a reason. New, detailed studies of the smallest galaxies could kill off the most studied alternative. When you look out at the Universe, […]
Stars don’t stay the same throughout their life, and the Sun is no exception. Here’s what’s going on. Here on Earth, the ingredients for life to survive, thrive, evolve, and sustain […]
Before there were humans, planets, or even stars and galaxies, we had to make the first elements. Here’s how they happened. From the first moments of Big Bang to the […]
With every second that goes by, tens of thousands of star disappear from our reach. And it’s getting worse. It’s been nearly a century since scientists first theorized that the Universe […]
Never draw a conclusion, no matter how ‘obvious,’ without doing the experiment first. We all love our most cherished ideas about how the world and the Universe works. Our conception […]
In all the years of NASA, we’ve never touched the Sun before. Here’s why it’s so hard. This past weekend, NASA successfully launched the Parker Solar Probe: the first spacecraft that […]
In General Relativity, even space and time themselves aren’t what they seem. Gravity might have been the first fundamental force ever discovered, but in many ways, it remains the least-well understood. […]