Charlie Wood

Using machine learning, string theorists are finally showing how microscopic configurations of extra dimensions translate into sets of elementary particles — though not yet those of our universe.

A generation of physicists has referred to the dark energy that permeates the universe as “the cosmological constant.” Now the largest map of the cosmos to date hints that this mysterious energy has been changing over billions of years.

Long-anticipated experiments that use light to mimic gravity are revealing the distribution of energies, forces and pressures inside a subatomic particle for the first time.

A series of advances seemed to promise the impossible: the existence of quantum states that would never, ever fall into disarray. But physicists are now discovering that the pull of disorder may not be so easily overcome.

Astronomers thought they had solved the mystery of gamma-ray bursts. A few recent events suggest otherwise.

For 50 years, physicists have understood current as a flow of charged particles. But a new experiment has found that in at least one strange material, this understanding falls apart.

Scientists have recently discovered scores of free-floating worlds that defy classification. The new observations have forced them to rethink their theories of star and planet formation.

What makes a quantum computer more powerful than a classical computer? It’s a surprisingly subtle question that physicists are still grappling with, decades into the quantum age.

Physicists have long suspected that hunks of metal could vibrate in a peculiar way that would be all but invisible. Now physicists have spotted these “demon modes.”