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physics
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Journey to the Birth of the Solar System
Join David Kaplan on a virtual-reality tour showing how the sun, the Earth and the other planets came to be.
Discoveries Fuel Fight Over Universe’s First Light
A series of observations at the very edge of the universe has reignited a debate over what lifted the primordial cosmic fog.
A Defense of the Reality of Time
Time isn’t just another dimension, argues Tim Maudlin. To make his case, he’s had to reinvent geometry.
Exoplanet Puzzle Cracked by Jazz Musicians
A system of seven Earth-like exoplanets appeared to be unstable. Now their orbits have been rewritten in the music of the spheres.
Swirling Bacteria Linked to the Physics of Phase Transitions
The new experiments suggest that simple models can explain the behavior of thousands of interacting organisms.
The Quantum Thermodynamics Revolution
As physicists extend the 19th-century laws of thermodynamics to the quantum realm, they’re rewriting the relationships among energy, entropy and information.
A Cosmic-Ray Hunter Takes to the Sky
Angela Olinto’s new balloon experiment takes her one step closer to the unknown source of the most energetic particles in the universe.
A Cosmic Burst Repeats, Deepening a Mystery
After a surprise discovery, astrophysicists are racing to understand superenergetic flashes of radio waves that sometimes beep out from distant galaxies.
Quantum Questions Inspire New Math
In order to fully understand the quantum world, we may have to develop a new realm of mathematics.