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Physicists Debate Hawking’s Idea That the Universe Had No Beginning
A recent challenge to Stephen Hawking’s biggest idea — about how the universe might have come from nothing — has cosmologists choosing sides.
What’s the Magic Behind Graphene’s ‘Magic’ Angle?
A new theoretical model may help explain the shocking onset of superconductivity in stacked, twisted carbon sheets.
How Feynman Diagrams Revolutionized Physics
In the late 1940s, Richard Feynman invented a visual tool for simplifying particle calculations that forever changed theoretical physics.
With a Simple Twist, a ‘Magic’ Material Is Now the Big Thing in Physics
The stunning emergence of a new type of superconductivity with the mere twist of a carbon sheet has left physicists giddy, and its discoverer nearly overwhelmed.
The Physics Still Hiding in the Higgs Boson
No new particles have been found at the Large Hadron Collider since the Higgs boson in 2012, but physicists say there’s much we can still learn from the Higgs itself.
How Our Universe Could Emerge as a Hologram
Physicists have devised a holographic model of “de Sitter space,” the term for a universe like ours, that could give us new clues about the origin of space and time.
The Double Life of Black Holes
Perfect black holes are versatile mathematical tools. Just don’t mistake them for the real thing.
A Child’s Puzzle Has Helped Unlock the Secrets of Magnetism
People have known about magnets since ancient times, but the physics of ferromagnetism remains a mystery. Now a familiar puzzle is getting physicists closer to the answer.
How Space and Time Could Be a Quantum Error-Correcting Code
The same codes needed to thwart errors in quantum computers may also give the fabric of space-time its intrinsic robustness.