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Computational Physics Inc. Life as We Know It Hinges on One Very Small Decimal
Give it up for 1/137.
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Dave Whyte / Quanta Magazine What Einstein May Have Gotten Wrong
The Swiss physicist Nicolas Gisin is using an old form of math to rethink the very basics of what we know about time.
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EGO / Virgo Collaboration / Perciballi / Quanta The Search for the Perfect Mirror
Your bedroom mirror does the trick in the morning, but for scientists studying gravitational waves, even the tiniest of imperfections can make a huge difference.
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Corinne Reid / Quanta Magazine Our Instructions for AI Will Never Be Specific Enough
AI excels at following human commands. That may be a problem.
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Maciej Rebisz Three Physicists Stumbled Upon a Striking Mathematical Discovery
Describing neutrino oscillations is notoriously tricky. The search for a shortcut led to unexpected places.
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Olena Shamlhalo / Quanta Rumors Are Swirling Around a Black-Hole Discovery
The object might be as massive as 100 suns—if it even exists.
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Patryk Hardziej / Quanta Magazine The Dispute at the Heart of Cosmology
The universe is expanding, but no one can agree on exactly how fast.
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wavegrower What Keeps Black Holes From Expanding Everywhere?
Black holes are somehow able to grow constantly without changing their size. Physics might finally be able to explain why.
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Boris Vaudran A Break in the Quest for the Quantum Speed Limit
“When you see that, you know you’re touching on something very, very deep and fundamental.”
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Julia Gunther / Olena Shmahalo / Quanta Magazine There May Be More Worlds With Water Than We Think
H2O is older than the sun, and could play a key role in helping planets grow.
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Niels Busch / Quanta Magazine An Experimental Boost for Quantum Weirdness
After a century of debate, an alternative theory that favored classical reality has finally met its ruin.
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Ognen Teofilovski / Reuters Do or Die for the Leading Big Bang Theory
A new analysis could put the question of cosmic expansion to rest once and for all.
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Rune Fisker / Quanta Magazine When Shadows Are Not What They Seem
By picking up on patterns too subtle for humans to notice, non-line-of-sight imaging can see around corners and through walls.
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Maciej Rebisz / Quanta Magazine The Universe as We Understand It May Be Impossible
A new conjecture in physics challenges the leading “theory of everything.”
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NASA / JPL–Caltech / GSFC / JAXA Astronomers Can’t Decide What the Sun Is Made Of
The concentration of metals in our star will determine when it dies, but scientists struggle to settle on an estimate.
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Photographer: Kiliii Yüyan / Art Director: Olena Shmahalo In the Garden of an Alien Hunter
When Victoria Meadows needs to ponder life on distant planets, she surrounds herself with earthly vegetation.
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ESA / Gaia / DPAC Galactic Archaeologists Begin Sifting Through Newly Illuminated Stars
The Milky Way's deep past is beginning to come into view.
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Olena Shmahalo / Quanta Magazine Doubt Surrounds the Only Experiment That Claims to See Dark-Matter Particles
For two decades, one research team has detected collisions between dark and ordinary matter—but no one else can replicate their findings.
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Jessica Kourkounis / Quanta Magazine A Powerful New Weapon in the Fight Against Shoddy Statistics
Using the wrong method to analyze a data set can yield misleading results. So one researcher is championing an approach that works for nearly everything.
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Lucy Reading-Ikkanda / Quanta Magazine Why Does the Universe Need to Be So Empty?
Physicists have long grappled with the perplexingly small weight of empty space.
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