Physics

In our mind’s eye, the universe seems to go on forever. But using geometry we can explore a variety of three-dimensional shapes that offer alternatives to “ordinary” infinite space.

Glass is anything that’s rigid like a crystal, yet made of disordered molecules like a liquid. To understand why it exists, researchers are attempting to create the perfect, still-hypothetical “ideal glass.”

The astrophysicist Janna Levin describes the fierce scientific beauty she finds in black holes and reveals why she took a major risk early in her career.

As the founding director of a new institute for fundamental research in Rwanda, the physicist Omololu Akin-Ojo hopes to stem the brain drain of Africa’s brightest minds.

The recent discovery of some of the first galaxies in the universe illuminates the darkest era in cosmic history.

A proposal for building wormhole-connected black holes offers a way to probe the paradoxes of quantum information.

A problem confronts cosmology: Two independent measurements of the universe’s expansion give incompatible answers. Now a third method, advanced by an astronomy pioneer, appears to bridge the divide.

A recent neutron star merger has defied astronomers’ expectations, leading them to question longstanding ideas about neutron stars and the supernovas that create them. “We have to go back to the drawing board.”

By watching for a special kind of flare, astronomers have identified the fingerprints of an Earth-size planet orbiting a distant star.