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Physics
The problem for galactic-scale civilizations comes down to two numbers.
If atoms are mostly empty space, then why can't two objects made of atoms simply pass through each other? Quantum physics explains why.
Most waves need a medium to travel through. But the way that light and gravitational waves travel shows that space can't be a medium at all.
"A person’s mass is made not of 'stuff' in the way we normally think about it, but rather our mass is made of energy."
"I was stunned. Here in front of me was the original apparatus through which a new vision of the world was slowly and painfully brought to light."
Scalars, vectors, and tensors come up all the time in physics. They're more than mathematical structures. They help describe the Universe.
Our classical intuition is no good in a quantum Universe. To make sense of it, we need to learn, and apply, an entirely novel set of rules.
It's the ultimate setup for a Thanksgiving Day disaster. The physics of water and its solid, liquid, and gas phases compels us not to do it.
All the stars, stellar corpses, planets, and other large, massive objects take on spherical or spheroidal shapes. Why is that universal?
Whether your hair is straight, wavy, curly, or kinky isn't just genetic in nature. It depends on the physics of your hair's very atoms.
One of the 20th century's most famous, influential, and successful physicists is lauded the world over. But Feynman is no hero to me.
The Universe changes remarkably over time, with some entities surviving and others simply decaying away. Is this cosmic evolution at work?
Watching for changes in the Red Planet’s orbit over time could be new way to detect passing dark matter.
Time is relative, not absolute, as gravity and motion both cause time to dilate. Your head and feet, therefore, don't age at the same rate.
LHC scientists just showed that spooky quantum entanglement applies to the highest-energy, shortest-lived particles of all: top quarks.
Do we actually live in a deterministic Universe, despite quantum physics? An alternative, non-spooky interpretation has now been ruled out.
Taught in every introductory physics class for centuries, the parabola is only an imperfect approximation for the true path of a projectile.
Inflation, dark matter, and string theory are all proposed extensions to the prior consensus picture. But what does the evidence say?
Here on Earth, we commonly use terms like weight (in pounds) and mass (in kilograms) as though they're interchangeable. They're not.
The original principle of relativity, proposed by Galileo way back in the early 1600s, remains true in its unchanged form even today.
The largest particle accelerator and collider ever built is the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Why not go much, much bigger?
More than any other equation in physics, E = mc² is recognizable and profound. But what do we actually learn about reality from it?
Today, the Large Hadron Collider is the most powerful particle physics experiment in history. What would a new, successor collider teach us?
Dark matter's hallmark is that it gravitates, but shows no sign of interacting under any other force. Does that mean we'll never detect it?
7mins
“The physics of the universe doesn't predict the emergence of biology.” Glasgow chemist Lee Cronin explains how inanimate matter becomes evolutionary:
A longstanding mismatch between theory and experiment motivated an exquisite muon measurement. At last, a theoretical solution has arrived.
The all-time record is Usain Bolt's 9.58 seconds, set in 2009. What is the fastest time, ultimately, for an ideal human body?
Cats twist and snakes slide, exploiting and negotiating physical laws. Scientists are figuring out how.
Physicists have increasingly begun to view life as information-processing "states of matter" that require special consideration.
From the explosions themselves to their unique and vibrant colors, the fireworks displays we adore require quantum physics.