Physics

Columnist Natalie Wolchover checks in with particle physicists more than a decade after the field entered a profound crisis.

A $1 million prize awaits anyone who can show where the math of fluid flow breaks down. With specially trained AI systems, researchers have found a slew of new candidates in simpler versions of the problem.

Try as they might, scientists can’t truly rid a space or an object of its energy. But what “zero-point energy” really means is up for interpretation.

Physicists spotted a “terribly exciting” new black hole, doubled down on weakening dark energy, and debated the meaning of quantum mechanics.

Years ago, an audacious Fields medalist outlined a sweeping program that, he claimed, could be used to resolve a major problem in algebraic geometry. Other mathematicians had their doubts. Now he says he has a proof.

A newly proposed explanation for the slipperiness of ice has revived a centuries-long debate.

Encouraged by successes in understanding black holes, theoretical physicists are applying what they’ve learned to whole universes. What they’re finding has them questioning fundamental assumptions about how physics ought to be done.

Has the secret to understanding gravity been hiding in plain sight for nearly 50 years?

The physics of mixing water layers — an interplay of wind, climate and more — makes lakes work. When it stops, impacts can ripple across an ecosystem.