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The Year in Physics
From the smallest scales to the largest, the physical world provided no shortage of surprises this year.
The Experimental Cosmologist Hunting for the First Sunrise
To catch even a whiff of the universe’s earliest epochs — an age of darkness, and one of new light — Cynthia Chiang builds her own equipment. Then she deploys it at the ends of the Earth.
Does Nothingness Exist?
Even empty space bubbles with energy, according to quantum mechanics — and that fact affects almost every facet of physical reality. The theoretical physicist Isabel Garcia Garcia explains to Steven Strogatz why it’s so important in modern physics to understand what a true vacuum is.
How (Nearly) Nothing Might Solve Cosmology’s Biggest Questions
By measuring the universe’s emptiest spaces, scientists can study how matter clumps together and how fast it flies apart.
An Enormous Gravity ‘Hum’ Moves Through the Universe
Astronomers have found a background din of exceptionally long-wavelength gravitational waves pervading the cosmos.
Are There Reasons to Believe in a Multiverse?
Several areas of physics suggest reasons to think that unobservable universes with different natural laws could lie beyond ours. The theoretical physicist David Kaplan talks with Steven Strogatz about the mysteries that a multiverse would solve.
Shadows in the Big Bang Afterglow Reveal Invisible Cosmic Structures
Cosmologists are using secondary signatures from the cosmic microwave background to map the universe’s hidden matter.
How Will the Universe End?
Big Freeze, Big Rip, Big Crunch, Bounce or vacuum decay? Steven Strogatz speaks with theoretical cosmologist Katie Mack about the five ways that scientists think the universe could come to an end.
What Lights the Universe’s Standard Candles?
Type Ia supernovas are astronomers’ best tools for measuring cosmic distances. In a first, researchers have managed to re-create one on a supercomputer, giving a boost to a leading hypothesis for how they form.