Charlie Wood

Staff Writer

Latest Articles

Room-Temperature Superconductivity Claim Falls Apart [Update]

October 14, 2020

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 That paper has now been retracted.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

September 17, 2020

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

September 8, 2020

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

August 20, 2020

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

August 13, 2020

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

August 4, 2020

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

July 28, 2020

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

June 29, 2020

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

June 24, 2020

One hundred years after it was proposed, the Ising model is used to understand everything from magnets to brains.

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