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time
theoretical physics
Physicists Rewrite the Fundamental Law That Leads to Disorder
The second law of thermodynamics is among the most sacred in all of science, but it has always rested on 19th century arguments about probability. New arguments trace its true source to the flows of quantum information.
quantum physics
An Ultra-Precise Clock Links the Quantum World With Gravity
Time was found to flow differently between the top and bottom of a single cloud of atoms. Physicists hope that such a system will one day help them combine quantum mechanics and Einstein’s theory of gravity.
quantum information theory
The New Thermodynamic Understanding of Clocks
Investigations of the simplest possible clocks have revealed their fundamental limitations — as well as insights into the nature of time itself.
2020 in Review
The Year in Physics
Featuring paradoxical black holes, room-temperature superconductors and a new escape from the prison of time.
Abstractions blog
Reasons Revealed for the Brain’s Elastic Sense of Time
New research finds that the subjective experience of time is linked to learning, thwarted expectations and neural fatigue.
Multimedia
Arrows of Time
The human mind has long grappled with the elusive nature of time: what it is, how to record it, how it regulates life, and whether it exists as a fundamental building block of the universe.
theoretical physics
Does Time Really Flow? New Clues Come From a Century-Old Approach to Math.
The laws of physics imply that the passage of time is an illusion. To avoid this conclusion, we might have to rethink the reality of infinitely precise numbers.
universality
The Universal Law That Aims Time’s Arrow
A new look at a ubiquitous phenomenon has uncovered unexpected fractal behavior that could give us clues about the early universe and the arrow of time.
neuroscience
How the Brain Creates a Timeline of the Past
The brain can’t directly encode the passage of time, but recent work hints at a workaround for putting timestamps on memories of events.