Abstractions blog
Secret Ingredient Found to Power Supernovas
Three-dimensional supernova simulations have solved the mystery of why they explode at all.
Abstractions blog
Physicists Pin Down Nuclear Reaction From Moments After the Big Bang
The newly-measured rate of a key nuclear fusion process from the Big Bang matches the picture of the universe 380,000 years later.
Abstractions blog
Some Physicists See Signs of Cosmic Strings From the Big Bang
Subtle aberrations in the clockwork blinking of stars could become “the result of the century.” That’s if the distortions are produced by a network of giant filaments left over from the birth of the universe.
Q&A
The Physicist Who Slayed Gravity’s Ghosts
Claudia de Rham showed how theories of “massive gravity” could potentially get rid of the need for dark energy.
gravitational waves
How the Bits of Quantum Gravity Can Buzz
New calculations show how hypothetical particles called gravitons would give rise to a special kind of noise.
Abstractions blog
What Might Be Speeding Up the Universe’s Expansion?
Physicists have proposed extra cosmic ingredients that could explain the faster-than-expected expansion of space.
Q&A
The Man Making Rwanda Into a Hub for Physics
As the founding director of a new institute for fundamental research in Rwanda, the physicist Omololu Akin-Ojo hopes to stem the brain drain of Africa’s brightest minds.
Q&A
A Call for Courage as Physicists Confront Collider Dilemma
Carlo Rubbia, leader of the bold collider experiment that in 1983 discovered the W and Z bosons, thinks particle physicists should now smash muons together in an innovative “Higgs factory.”