Natalie Wolchover

A team in Paris has made the most precise measurement yet of the fine-structure constant, killing hopes for a new force of nature.

It has been thought of as many things: a pointlike object, an excitation of a field, a speck of pure math that has cut into reality. But never has physicists’ conception of a particle changed more than it is changing now.

We’ve created a new way to explore the fundamental constituents of the universe.

Recent experiments show that particles should be able to go faster than light when they quantum mechanically “tunnel” through walls.

Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their studies of black holes.

His incompleteness theorems destroyed the search for a mathematical theory of everything. Nearly a century later, we’re still coming to grips with the consequences.

Astronomers are discovering that magnetic fields permeate much of the cosmos. If these fields date back to the Big Bang, they could solve a major cosmological mystery.

Researchers say there are three possible explanations for the anomalous data. One is mundane. Two would revolutionize physics.

We asked four physicists why gravity stands out among the forces of nature. We got four different answers.