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Particle physics
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A Prodigy Who Cracked Open the Cosmos
Frank Wilczek has been at the forefront of theoretical physics for the past 50 years. He talks about winning the Nobel Prize for work he did as a student, his solution to the dark matter problem, and the God of a scientist.
A Mathematician’s Unanticipated Journey Through the Physical World
Lauren Williams has charted an adventurous mathematical career out of the pieces of a fundamental object called the positive Grassmannian.
Contemplating the End of Physics
Has physics reached the limits of what we can discover — or are the possibilities only just beginning?
The Search for Dark Matter Is Dramatically Expanding
Physicists plan to leave no stone unturned, checking whether dark matter tickles different types of detectors, nudges starlight, warms planetary cores or even lodges in rocks.
What Is a Particle?
It has been thought of as many things: a pointlike object, an excitation of a field, a speck of pure math that has cut into reality. But never has physicists’ conception of a particle changed more than it is changing now.
A New Map of All the Particles and Forces
We’ve created a new way to explore the fundamental constituents of the universe.
The Hidden Structure of the Universe
Our new series of articles explores the search for fundamental structure at the edge of science.
How Mathematical ‘Hocus-Pocus’ Saved Particle Physics
Renormalization has become perhaps the single most important advance in theoretical physics in 50 years.
The Mathematical Structure of Particle Collisions Comes Into View
Physicists have identified an algebraic structure underlying the messy mathematics of particle collisions. Some hope it will lead to a more elegant theory of the natural world.