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Fundamental physics

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The First Nuclear Clock Will Test if Fundamental Constants Change

September 4, 2024

An ultra-precise measurement of a transition in the hearts of thorium atoms gives physicists a tool to probe the forces that bind the universe.

Diminishing Dark Energy May Evade the ‘Swampland’ of Impossible Universes

August 19, 2024

The largest-ever 3D map of the cosmos hints that the dark energy that’s fueling the universe’s expansion may be weakening. One community of theoretical physicists expected as much.

AI Starts to Sift Through String Theory’s Near-Endless Possibilities

April 23, 2024

Using machine learning, string theorists are finally showing how microscopic configurations of extra dimensions translate into sets of elementary particles — though not yet those of our universe.

Hopes of Big Bang Discoveries Ride on a Future Spacecraft

April 17, 2024

Physicists and cosmologists will have a new probe of primordial processes when Europe launches the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) next decade.

Dark Energy May Be Weakening, Major Astrophysics Study Finds

April 4, 2024

A generation of physicists has referred to the dark energy that permeates the universe as “the cosmological constant.” Now the largest map of the cosmos to date hints that this mysterious energy has been changing over billions of years.

A New Experiment Casts Doubt on the Leading Theory of the Nucleus

June 12, 2023

By measuring inflated helium nuclei, physicists have challenged our best understanding of the force that binds protons and neutrons.

How to Think About Relativity

November 14, 2022

Albert Einstein’s ideas about space-time aren’t exactly intuitive, and they aren’t exactly Einstein’s, either.

Q&A

Pondering the Bits That Build Space-Time and Brains

April 20, 2022

Vijay Balasubramanian investigates whether the fabric of the universe might be built from information, and what it means that physicists can even ask such a question.

Massive Black Holes Shown to Act Like Quantum Particles

March 29, 2022

Physicists are using quantum math to understand what happens when black holes collide. In a surprise, they’ve shown that a single particle can describe a collision’s entire gravitational wave.

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