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Matter vs. Force: Why There Are Exactly Two Types of Particles

June 23, 2025

Every elementary particle falls into one of two categories. Collectivist bosons account for the forces that move us while individualist fermions keep our atoms from collapsing.

Is Gravity Just Entropy Rising? Long-Shot Idea Gets Another Look.

June 13, 2025

A new argument explores how the growth of disorder could cause massive objects to move toward one another. Physicists are both interested and skeptical.

First Map Made of a Solid’s Secret Quantum Geometry

June 6, 2025

Physicists recently mapped the hidden shape that underlies the quantum behaviors of a crystal, using a new method that’s expected to become ubiquitous.

Will We Ever Prove String Theory?

May 29, 2025

Promise and controversy continues to surround string theory as a potential unified theory of everything. In the latest episode of The Joy of Why, Cumrun Vafa discusses his progress in trying to find good, testable models hidden among the ‘swampland’ of impossible universes.

Singularities in Space-Time Prove Hard to Kill

Black hole and Big Bang singularities break our best theory of gravity. A trilogy of theorems hints that physicists must go to the ends of space and time to find a fix.

How Did Geometry Create Modern Physics?

May 15, 2025

Geometry may have its origins thousands of years ago in ancient land surveying, but it has also had a surprising impact on modern physics. In the latest episode of The Joy of Why, Yang-Hui He explores geometry’s evolution and its future potential through AI.

How the Universe Differs From Its Mirror Image

May 14, 2025

From living matter to molecules to elementary particles, the world is made of “chiral” objects that differ from their reflected forms.

Q&A

Finding Beauty and Truth in Mundane Occurrences

May 9, 2025

The physicist Sidney Nagel delights in solving mysteries of the universe that are hiding in plain sight.

The Strange Physics That Gave Birth to AI

April 30, 2025

Modern thinking machines owe their existence to insights from the physics of complex materials.

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