Theoretical physics

As physicists extend the 19th-century laws of thermodynamics to the quantum realm, they’re rewriting the relationships among energy, entropy and information.

Physicists are attempting to map the distribution of the prime numbers to the energy levels of a particular quantum system.

In order to fully understand the quantum world, we may have to develop a new realm of mathematics.

A new class of quantum particle is about to emerge from the tangled considerations of quantum statistics.

A decades-old method called the “bootstrap” is enabling new discoveries about the geometry underlying all quantum theories.

Physicists have failed to find disintegrating protons, throwing into limbo the beloved theory that the forces of nature were unified at the beginning of time.

How do physicists reconstruct what really happened in a particle collision? Through calculations that are so challenging that, in some cases, they simply can’t be done. Yet.

An unexpected connection has emerged between the results of physics experiments and an important, seemingly unrelated set of numbers in pure mathematics.

So-called “analogue experiments” are becoming increasingly common in physics, but do they teach or mislead?