We care about your data, and we'd like to use cookies to give you a smooth browsing experience. Please agree and read more about our privacy policy.
Quanta Homepage
  • Physics
  • Mathematics
  • Biology
  • Computer Science
  • Topics
  • Archive

What's up in

time

Latest Articles

Video/image of a metronome whose arm is simultaneously ticking rightward and leftward.
quantum physics

How Quantum Physicists ‘Flipped Time’ (and How They Didn’t)

By Charlie Wood
January 27, 2023
Comment
Read Later

Two teams have made photons act as if time were simultaneously flowing in two directions. The experiments demonstrate a way to potentially boost the performance of quantum devices.

Illustration of the earth warping space-time, surrounded by small gears and galaxies.
Quantized Columns

How to Think About Relativity

By Sean Carroll
November 14, 2022
Comment
Read Later

Albert Einstein’s ideas about space-time aren’t exactly intuitive, and they aren’t exactly Einstein’s, either.

A curly arrow being straightened out.
theoretical physics

Physicists Rewrite the Fundamental Law That Leads to Disorder

By Philip Ball
May 26, 2022
Comment
Read Later

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

By Katie McCormick
October 25, 2021
Comment
Read Later

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.

Illustration of various kinds of clocks floating against a pink background.
quantum information theory

The New Thermodynamic Understanding of Clocks

By Natalie Wolchover
August 31, 2021
Comment
Read Later

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

By Michael Moyer
December 23, 2020
Comment
Read Later

Featuring paradoxical black holes, room-temperature superconductors and a new escape from the prison of time.

Looping video of illustrated clocks stretching in different directions.
Abstractions blog

Reasons Revealed for the Brain’s Elastic Sense of Time

By Jordana Cepelewicz
September 24, 2020
Comment
Read Later

New research finds that the subjective experience of time is linked to learning, thwarted expectations and neural fatigue.

Multimedia

Arrows of Time

By Dan Falk +2 authors
Eleanor Lutz
Olena Shmahalo
May 4, 2020
Comment
Read Later

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.

By Natalie Wolchover
April 7, 2020
Comment
Read Later

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.


Previous
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
Next
Follow Quanta
Facebook
Facebook

Twitter
Twitter

Youtube
YouTube

Instagram
Instagram

RSS
RSS

Newsletter

Past Month

Most Read Articles

This Data is Current Loading...
This Data is Current Loading...
This Data is Current Loading...
The Quanta Newsletter

Get highlights of the most important news delivered to your email inbox

Recent newsletters
Quanta Homepage
Facebook
Twitter
Youtube
Instagram

  • About Quanta
  • Archive
  • Contact Us
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Simons Foundation
All Rights Reserved © 2023