Physics

Celia Escamilla-Rivera is combining large data sets with supercomputers to test general relativity against its little-known competitors.

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.

Two teams have shown how quantum approaches can solve problems faster than classical computers, bringing physics and computer science closer together.

We might have a past faint sun to owe for life’s existence. This has consequences for the possibility of life outside Earth.

The same phenomenon by which an opera singer can shatter a wineglass also underlies the very existence of subatomic particles.

In a quest to map out a quantum theory of gravity, researchers have used logical rules to calculate how much Einstein’s theory must change. The result matches string theory perfectly.

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.

Physicists have been busy exploring how our universe might emerge like a hologram out of a two-dimensional sheet. New clues have come from the symmetries found on an infinitely distant “celestial sphere.”