Archive

A black hole formula worked out in the 1970s remains the most concrete clue physicists have about the threads of the space-time fabric.

A mysterious phenomenon known as duality often leads to new discoveries in physics. This time, space-time itself can sometimes be two things at once.

The philosopher Karen Crowther digs into how the space-time fabric could possibly emerge from something non-spatiotemporal.

These three imagined scenarios lead many physicists to doubt that space-time is fundamental.

Until his dying days, the giant of 20th-century physics obsessed over the underpinnings of space and time, and how we can all share the same version of them.

This special issue of Quanta Magazine explores the ultimate scientific quest: the search for the fundamental nature of reality.

Mathematicians have long wondered how “shapes of constant width” behave in higher dimensions. A surprisingly simple construction has given them an answer.

Machines work with words by embedding their relationships with other words in a string of numbers.

Cells across the tree of life can swap short-lived messages encoded by RNA — missives that resemble a quick text rather than a formal memo on letterhead.