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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.
This Cosmologist Knows How It’s All Going to End
The astrophysicist and social media phenom Katie Mack is ready to tell you about the fate of the universe.
Dark Matter Experiment Finds Unexplained Signal
Researchers say there are three possible explanations for the anomalous data. One is mundane. Two would revolutionize physics.
The Two Forms of Mathematical Beauty
Mathematicians typically appreciate either generic or exceptional beauty in their work, but one type is more useful in describing the universe.
Why Gravity Is Not Like the Other Forces
We asked four physicists why gravity stands out among the forces of nature. We got four different answers.
A Surprise Discovery Points to the Source of Fast Radio Bursts
After a burst lit up their telescope “like a Christmas tree,” astronomers were able to finally track down the source of these cosmic oddities.
Black Hole Paradoxes Reveal a Fundamental Link Between Energy and Order
By chewing on the problems posed by “extremal” black holes, physicists have exposed a surprising and universal connection between energy and entropy.
Growing Anomalies at the Large Hadron Collider Raise Hopes
Collider physicists report that several measurements of particles called B mesons deviate from predictions. Alone, each oddity looks like a fluke, but their collective drift is more suggestive.
‘Milestone’ Evidence for Anyons, a Third Kingdom of Particles
Anyons don’t fit into either of the two known particle kingdoms. To find them, physicists had to erase the third dimension.