Physics

Readers’ modifications of a bean machine showed how deterministic laws are capable of producing random-seeming behavior.

A surprisingly youthful estimate of the age of the rings has stirred a backlash.

Calculations involving a higher dimension are guiding physicists toward a misstep in Stephen Hawking’s legendary black hole analysis.

Three physicists stumbled across an unexpected relationship between some of the most ubiquitous objects in math.

How a young celebrity became one of the first female astronomers at Caltech, befriended Richard Feynman, and ended up the world’s foremost chronicler of the science of the night sky.

Most every cosmologist believes the universe is flat. A new analysis argues that it’s closed.

A close look at fundamental symmetries has exposed hidden patterns in the universe. Physicists think that those same symmetries may also reveal time’s original secret.

How do magnetars get so magnetic? A study of stellar explosions shows that the long-accepted theory might be wrong.

Today Google announced that it achieved “quantum supremacy.” Its chief quantum computing rival, IBM, said it hasn’t. The disagreement hinges on what the term really means.