Latest Articles
Room-Temperature Superconductivity Claim Falls Apart [Update]
In 2020, researchers reported that they had created a room-temperature superconductor. That paper has now been retracted.
How Mathematical ‘Hocus-Pocus’ Saved Particle Physics
Renormalization has become perhaps the single most important advance in theoretical physics in 50 years.
A New Cosmic Tension: The Universe Might Be Too Thin
Cosmologists have concluded that the universe doesn’t appear to clump as much as it should. Could both of cosmology’s big puzzles share a single fix?
The Mathematical Structure of Particle Collisions Comes Into View
Physicists have identified an algebraic structure underlying the messy mathematics of particle collisions. Some hope it will lead to a more elegant theory of the natural world.
Global Wave Discovery Ends 220-Year Search
An 18th-century physicist first predicted the existence of a chorus of atmospheric waves that swoop around Earth. Scientists have finally found them.
Big Bounce Simulations Challenge the Big Bang
Detailed computer simulations have found that a cosmic contraction can generate features of the universe that we observe today.
An Alternative to Dark Matter Passes Critical Test
Modified gravity theories have never been able to describe the universe’s first light. A new formulation does.
Cosmic Rays May Explain Life’s Bias for Right-Handed DNA
Cosmic rays may have given right-handed genetic helixes an evolutionary edge at the beginning of life’s history.
The Cartoon Picture of Magnets That Has Transformed Science
One hundred years after it was proposed, the Ising model is used to understand everything from magnets to brains.