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Physicists Use Quantum Mechanics to Pull Energy out of Nothing

February 22, 2023

The quantum energy teleportation protocol was proposed in 2008 and largely ignored. Now two independent experiments have shown that it works.

How Will the Universe End?

February 22, 2023

Big Freeze, Big Rip, Big Crunch, Bounce or vacuum decay? Steven Strogatz speaks with theoretical cosmologist Katie Mack about the five ways that scientists think the universe could come to an end.

The Joy of Asking About Infinity, Jellyfish and the End of the Universe

February 9, 2023

As The Joy of Why podcast returns for a second season, producer Polly Stryker and host Steven Strogatz invite listeners to join them and their brilliant new guests on another voyage of discovery.

What Lights the Universe’s Standard Candles?

February 8, 2023

Type Ia supernovas are astronomers’ best tools for measuring cosmic distances. In a first, researchers have managed to re-create one on a supercomputer, giving a boost to a leading hypothesis for how they form.

How Our Reality May Be a Sum of All Possible Realities

February 6, 2023

Richard Feynman’s path integral is both a powerful prediction machine and a philosophy about how the world is. But physicists are still struggling to figure out how to use it, and what it means.

Astronomers Say They Have Spotted the Universe’s First Stars

January 30, 2023

Theory has it that “Population III” stars brought light to the cosmos. The James Webb Space Telescope may have just glimpsed them.

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

January 27, 2023

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.

Mathematicians Find an Infinity of Possible Black Hole Shapes

January 24, 2023

In three-dimensional space, the surface of a black hole must be a sphere. But a new result shows that in higher dimensions, an infinite number of configurations are possible.

Standard Model of Cosmology Survives a Telescope’s Surprising Finds

January 20, 2023

Reports that the James Webb Space Telescope killed the reigning cosmological model turn out to have been exaggerated. But astronomers still have much to learn from distant galaxies glimpsed by Webb.

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