Galaxies Long-Lived Stellar Blast Kindles Hope of a Supernova We’ve Never Seen BeforeQuanta Magazine - Robin Andrews A giant star’s death throes may offer the first evidence of a pair-instability supernova, and a glimpse of the first stars in the universe. The early …
Protons Physicists Finally Nail the Proton’s Size, and Hope DiesQuanta Magazine - Natalie Wolchover A new measurement appears to have eliminated an anomaly that had captivated physicists for nearly a decade. In 2010, physicists in Germany reported …
Probability Where Quantum Probability Comes FromQuanta Magazine - Sean Carroll There are many different ways to think about probability. Quantum mechanics embodies them all. In A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities, published in …
Thermodynamics Are We All Wrong About Black Holes?Quanta Magazine - Brendan Z. Foster Craig Callender worries that the analogy between black holes and thermodynamics has been stretched too far. In the early 1970s, people studying …
Science Strange Metal-like Bonds Discovered in Customized CrystalsQuanta Magazine - Erika K. Carlson While studying materials made from DNA-coated nanoparticles, researchers found a new form of this matter: lattices in which smaller particles roam …
Black Holes Possible Detection of a Black Hole So Big It ‘Should Not Exist’Quanta Magazine - Natalie Wolchover At stake are fundamental ideas about how black holes form — and a six-way bet. Black hole physicists have been excitedly discussing reports that the …
Physics Ann Nelson Took On the Biggest Problems in PhysicsQuanta Magazine - Chanda Prescod-Weinstein The theoretical particle physicist Ann Nelson, who died on August 4 at age 61, was a font of brilliant ideas and a champion of ending discrimination …
Breakups Bubble Experiment Finds Universal LawsQuanta Magazine - Charlie Wood Physicists have found examples of “universality” in a system of confined bubbles. The work could help researchers understand the strange behavior of …
Black Holes To Make Two Black Holes Collide, Try ThreeQuanta Magazine - Erika K. Carlson How do black holes merge and make gravitational waves? Maybe with a little help from their friends. The spiraling dance of a pair of colliding black …
Cosmologists Debate How Fast the Universe Is ExpandingQuanta Magazine - Natalie Wolchover New measurements could upend the standard theory of the cosmos that has reigned since the discovery of dark energy 21 years ago.
A Call for Courage as Physicists Confront Collider DilemmaQuanta Magazine - Thomas Lewton Carlo Rubbia, leader of the bold collider experiment that in 1983 discovered the W and Z bosons, thinks particle physicists should now smash muons …
The Universal Law That Aims Time’s ArrowQuanta Magazine - Natalie Wolchover A new look at a ubiquitous phenomenon has uncovered unexpected fractal behavior that could give us clues about the early universe and the arrow of …
Physicists Peer Inside a Fireball of Quantum MatterQuanta Magazine - Charlie Wood Experimenters in Germany have glimpsed the kind of strange, non-atomic matter thought to fill the cores of merging neutron stars. A gold wedding band …
Sun’s Puzzling Plasma Recreated in a LabQuanta Magazine - Erika K. Carlson The twisting loops of the sun’s magnetic field control the flow of charged particles throughout the solar system. For the first time, researchers …
Big Black Holes Found in the Smallest GalaxiesQuanta Magazine - Ramin Skibba Tiny, dim “dwarf” galaxies have been found to hide gas-spewing black holes. Even little galaxies have enormous black holes. That’s the takeaway from a …
Science Quantum Darwinism, an Idea to Explain Objective Reality, Passes First TestsQuanta Magazine - Philip Ball Three experiments have vetted quantum Darwinism, a theory that explains how quantum possibilities can give rise to objective, classical reality. It’s …
Wandering Space Rocks Help Solve Mysteries of Planet Formation | Quanta MagazineQuanta Magazine - Rebecca Boyle After an interstellar asteroid shot past the sun, scientists realized that there’s probably a lot of itinerant rocks out there. Those stones are …
How (Relatively) Simple Symmetries Underlie Our Expanding UniverseQuanta Magazine - Natalie Wolchover Although Einstein’s theory of space-time seems more complicated than Newtonian physics, it greatly simplified the mathematical description of the …
Science The Quantum Theory That Peels Away the Mystery of MeasurementQuanta Magazine - Philip Ball A recent test has confirmed the predictions of quantum trajectory theory, which describes what happens during the long-mysterious “collapse” of a …
Universe How to Understand the Universe When You’re Stuck Inside of ItQuanta Magazine - Amanda Gefter Lee Smolin has a radical idea for how to understand an object with no exterior: Imagine it built bit-by-bit from relationships between events.
The Simple Idea Behind Einstein’s Greatest DiscoveriesQuanta Magazine - K.C. Cole Lurking behind Einstein’s theory of gravity and our modern understanding of particle physics is the deceptively simple idea of symmetry. But …
Philosophers Debate New ‘Sonic Black Hole’ DiscoveryQuanta Magazine - Natalie Wolchover Opinions differ about what recent measurements of a sound-trapping fluid reveal about light-trapping black holes. In the decades since Hawking …
Science A Close Look at Newborn Planets Reveals Hints of Infant MoonsQuanta Magazine - Joshua Sokol Astronomers have discovered a complex planetary system still swirling into existence.
Physicists Debate Hawking’s Idea That the Universe Had No BeginningQuanta Magazine - Natalie Wolchover A recent challenge to Stephen Hawking’s biggest idea — about how the universe might have come from nothing — has cosmologists choosing sides. In 1981, …
Photons Quantum Leaps, Long Assumed to Be Instantaneous, Take TimeQuanta Magazine - Philip Ball An experiment caught a quantum system in the middle of a jump — something the originators of quantum mechanics assumed was impossible. Devoret and …
Graphene What’s the Magic Behind Graphene’s ‘Magic’ Angle?Quanta Magazine - David H. Freedman A new theoretical model may help explain the shocking onset of superconductivity in stacked, twisted carbon sheets. The blockbuster discovery last …
MIT The Hidden Heroines of ChaosQuanta Magazine - Joshua Sokol Two women programmers played a pivotal role in the birth of chaos theory. Their previously untold story illustrates the changing status of …
The Hidden Heroines of ChaosQuanta Magazine - Joshua Sokol Two women programmers played a pivotal role in the birth of chaos theory. Their previously untold story illustrates the changing status of …
As Planet Discoveries Pile Up, a Gap Appears in the PatternQuanta Magazine - Rebecca Boyle Astronomers are puzzling over a paucity of planets in the galaxy measuring between 1.5 and two times Earth's size. After the sun formed, the dust and …
