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theoretical physics

Orange hills (polaritons) against a black background. Below each hill, an arrow points to an angular position on a circle.
explainers

The Near-Magical Mystery of Quasiparticles

By Thomas Lewton
March 24, 2021
Read Later

The zoo of spontaneously emerging particlelike entities known as quasiparticles has grown quickly and become more and more exotic. Here are a few of the most curious and potentially useful examples.

Graphic of swirling vortex-like patterns called skyrmions.
condensed matter physics

A New Twist Reveals Superconductivity’s Secrets

By Charlie Wood
March 16, 2021
Read Later

An unexpected superconductor was beginning to look like a fluke, but a new theory and a second discovery have revealed that emergent quasiparticles may be behind the effect.

An illustration of an airplane with its contrails coming out in front of it.
quantum gravity

Quantum Mischief Rewrites the Laws of Cause and Effect

By Natalie Wolchover
March 11, 2021
Read Later

Spurred on by quantum experiments that scramble the ordering of causes and their effects, some physicists are figuring out how to abandon causality altogether.

An abstract black ball on a blue background.
Abstractions blog

In Violation of Einstein, Black Holes Might Have ‘Hair’

By Jonathan O'Callaghan
February 11, 2021
Read Later

A new study shows that extreme black holes could break the famous “no-hair” theorem, and in a way that we could detect.

Q&A

A Prodigy Who Cracked Open the Cosmos

By Claudia Dreifus
January 12, 2021
Read Later

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 stylized atom surrounded by concentric shells of increasingly complex organisms.
quantum physics

A New Theorem Maps Out the Limits of Quantum Physics

By Anil Ananthaswamy
December 3, 2020
Read Later

The result highlights a fundamental tension: Either the rules of quantum mechanics don’t always apply, or at least one basic assumption about reality must be wrong.

Illustration of a particle
Hidden Structure

What Is a Particle?

By Natalie Wolchover
November 12, 2020
Read Later

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.

Cora Dvorkin in front of a starry backdrop.
Hidden Structure

The Cosmologist Who Dreams in the Universe’s Dark Threads

By Rebecca Boyle
November 5, 2020
Read Later

Cora Dvorkin discovered new possibilities for what dark matter could be. Now she’s devising unorthodox ways to identify it.

Illustration of a black hole
Hidden Structure

The Most Famous Paradox in Physics Nears Its End

By George Musser
October 29, 2020
Read Later

In a landmark series of calculations, physicists have proved that black holes can shed information.


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