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Finding Dark Energy in the Details
The astrophysicist Joshua Frieman seeks to pinpoint the mysterious substance driving the accelerating expansion of the universe.
Quark Quartet Fuels Quantum Feud
Newly discovered particles are forcing physicists to extend their simple picture of subatomic interactions or replace it with a more nuanced understanding.
At Multiverse Impasse, a New Theory of Scale
Physicists have begun to explore the idea that mass and length may not be fundamental properties of nature. The hypothesis could help to avoid the conclusion that our world is just a weird bubble in an endlessly foaming multiverse.
In Search of Dark Stars
Katherine Freese, a physicist who will soon lead the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, reflects on the hunt for dark matter and how dark matter heating may have produced the first stars.
A Bold Critic of the Big Bang’s ‘Smoking Gun’
The cosmologist David Spergel explains why a widely publicized gravitational-wave discovery could be wrong, and how the “overreaching” study could affect the public’s perception of science.
Early-Universe Explorer Looks for Answers
Chao-Lin Kuo, who helped design the experiment that claimed to have found evidence of gravitational waves from the Big Bang, isn’t bothered by criticism that cosmic dust may account for his results.
Fluid Tests Hint at Concrete Quantum Reality
Surprising oil drop experiments suggest that the quantum world may not be as strange as advertised.
In a Grain, a Glimpse of the Cosmos
When scientists traced a museum rock back to its origins, they uncovered mysteries about the early solar system.
Physicists Prove Surprising Rule of Threes
Three groups of experimentalists have independently observed a strange state of matter that forms from three particles of any type and at any scale, from practically infinitesimal to infinite.