Black holes

Just months after their discovery, gravitational waves coming from the mergers of black holes are shaking up astrophysics.

The spokesperson for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory called it “a promising start to mapping the populations of black holes in our universe.”

The astrophysicist, conceptual writer and host of standing-room-only scientific soirees at a repurposed factory in Brooklyn sees science as a powerful force in culture.

A satellite spotted a burst of light just as gravitational waves rolled in from the collision of two black holes. Was the flash a cosmic coincidence, or do astrophysicists need to rethink what black holes can do?

The path from a revolutionary set of equations to the detection of gravitational waves was strewn with obstacles and controversy, explains the physicist Daniel Kennefick — and the struggle continues.

Ripples in space-time have been detected a century after Einstein predicted them, launching a new era in astronomy.

By replacing black holes with fuzzballs — dense, star-like objects from string theory — researchers think they can avoid some knotty paradoxes at the edge of physics.

New tools may reveal how quantum information builds the structure of space.

A bold new idea aims to link two famously discordant descriptions of nature. In doing so, it may also reveal how space-time owes its existence to the spooky connections of quantum information.