Quantum physics

We asked four physicists why gravity stands out among the forces of nature. We got four different answers.

Anyons don’t fit into either of the two known particle kingdoms. To find them, physicists had to erase the third dimension.

Two ways of approximating the ultra-complicated math that governs quark particles have recently come into conflict, leaving physicists unsure what their decades-old theory predicts.

A landmark proof in computer science has also solved an important problem called the Connes embedding conjecture. Mathematicians are working to understand it.

The laws of physics imply that the passage of time is an illusion. To avoid this conclusion, we might have to rethink the reality of infinitely precise numbers.

Three progressively heavier copies of each type of matter particle exist, and no one knows why. A new paper by Steven Weinberg takes a stab at explaining the pattern.

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

By considering simple symmetries, physicists working on the “bootstrap” can rediscover the basic form of the known forces that shape the universe.

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