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Newly Measured Particle Seems Heavy Enough to Break Known Physics

April 7, 2022

A new analysis of W bosons suggests these particles are significantly heavier than predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics.

A Deepening Crisis Forces Physicists to Rethink Structure of Nature’s Laws

March 1, 2022

Physicists are reexamining a longstanding assumption: that big stuff consists of smaller stuff.

The Mysterious Forces Inside the Nucleus Grow a Little Less Strange

February 14, 2022

The strong force holds protons and neutrons together, but the theory behind it is largely inscrutable. Two new approaches show how it works.

Is the Great Neutrino Puzzle Pointing to Multiple Missing Particles?

October 28, 2021

Years of conflicting neutrino measurements have led physicists to propose a “dark sector” of invisible particles — one that could simultaneously explain dark matter, the puzzling expansion of the universe, and other mysteries.

One Lab’s Quest to Build Space-Time Out of Quantum Particles

September 7, 2021

For over two decades, physicists have pondered how the fabric of space-time may emerge from some kind of quantum entanglement. In Monika Schleier-Smith’s lab at Stanford University, the thought experiment is becoming real.

How Steven Weinberg Transformed Physics and Physicists

August 11, 2021

When Steven Weinberg died last month, the world lost one of its most profound thinkers.

A Video Tour of the Standard Model

July 16, 2021

The Standard Model is a sweeping equation that has correctly predicted the results of virtually every experiment ever conducted, as Quanta explores in a new video.

‘Last Hope’ Experiment Finds Evidence for Unknown Particles

April 7, 2021

Today’s long-anticipated announcement by Fermilab’s Muon g-2 team appears to solidify a tantalizing conflict between nature and theory. But a separate calculation, published at the same time, has clouded the picture.

Q&A

A Prodigy Who Cracked Open the Cosmos

January 12, 2021

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.