Physics

Frank Wilczek has been at the forefront of theoretical physics for the past 50 years. He talks about winning the Nobel Prize for work he did as a student, his solution to the dark matter problem, and the God of a scientist.

For decades, astronomers debated whether a particular smudge was close-by and small, or distant and huge. A new X-ray map supports the massive option.

Online comment platforms can bring out the best — and the worst — in people. At the end of a tumultuous year, Quanta’s editors highlight some of our favorite things you had to say.

Featuring paradoxical black holes, room-temperature superconductors and a new escape from the prison of time.

We don’t know why the universe appears to be expanding faster than it should. New ultra-precise distance measurements have only intensified the problem.

Over the past two years, astronomers have rewritten the story of our galaxy.

The result highlights a fundamental tension: Either the rules of quantum mechanics don’t always apply, or at least one basic assumption about reality must be wrong.

A team in Paris has made the most precise measurement yet of the fine-structure constant, killing hopes for a new force of nature.

Has physics reached the limits of what we can discover — or are the possibilities only just beginning?