Naturalness

Physicists are reexamining a longstanding assumption: that big stuff consists of smaller stuff.

Lurking behind Einstein’s theory of gravity and our modern understanding of particle physics is the deceptively simple idea of symmetry. But physicists are beginning to question whether focusing on symmetry is still as productive as it once was.

The universe has not cooperated with physicists’ hopes. In desperation, many are looking for new ways to search for surprises at the Large Hadron Collider.

Physicists are confronting their “nightmare scenario.” What does the absence of new particles suggest about how nature works?

Nima Arkani-Hamed is championing a campaign to build the world’s largest particle collider, even as he pursues a new vision of the laws of nature.

Three physicists have proposed a new solution to one of the deepest mysteries in particle physics: why the Higgs boson has such a tiny mass.

Physicists have begun to explore the idea that mass and length may not be fundamental properties of nature. The hypothesis could help to avoid the conclusion that our world is just a weird bubble in an endlessly foaming multiverse.

Decades of confounding experiments have physicists considering a startling possibility: The universe might not make sense.