Charlie Wood

The strong force holds protons and neutrons together, but the theory behind it is largely inscrutable. Two new approaches show how it works.

If only scientists understood exactly how electrons act in molecules, they’d be able to predict the behavior of everything from experimental drugs to high-temperature superconductors. Following decades of physics-based insights, artificial intelligence systems are taking the next leap.

In computer simulations of possible universes, researchers have discovered that a neural network can infer the amount of matter in a whole universe by studying just one of its galaxies.

A central pillar of cosmology — the universe is the same everywhere and in all directions — is surviving a storm of possible evidence against it.

One of the first goals of quantum computing has been to recreate bizarre quantum systems that can’t be studied in an ordinary computer. A dark-horse quantum simulator has now done just that.

Through his encyclopedic study of the electron, an obscure figure named Stefano Laporta found a handle on the subatomic world’s fearsome complexity. His algorithm has swept the field.

Physicists are translating commonsense principles into strict mathematical constraints on how our universe must have behaved at the beginning of time.

The unexpected discovery of the double-charm tetraquark has given physicists a new tool with which to hone their understanding of the strongest of nature’s fundamental forces.

In three towering papers, a team of mathematicians has worked out the details of Liouville quantum field theory, a two-dimensional model of quantum gravity.