Physics

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.

Physicists have proposed extra cosmic ingredients that could explain the faster-than-expected expansion of space.

And why is the black hole at the center of our own galaxy so dim?

The “pinball” model of a slipping fault line borrows from the mathematics of avalanches.

The first official evidence of a key imbalance between neutrinos and antineutrinos provides one of the best clues for why the universe contains something rather than nothing.

Freeman Dyson — physicist, mathematician, writer and idea factory — died on February 28, but his vitality lives on.

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.

Sometimes a mirror that reflects 99.9999% of light isn’t good enough.

The astrophysicist Brian Keating talks to host Steven Strogatz about chasing the universe’s greatest mysteries — and what it’s like to have a major discovery slip through his fingers.