The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. One July afternoon in 2024, Ryan Williams set out to prove himself wrong. Two months had passed since he’d hit upon a startling ...

One July afternoon in 2024, Ryan Williams set out to prove himself wrong. Two months had passed since he’d hit upon a startling discovery about the relationship between time and memory in computing.

A fringe new theory suggests that time is the fundamental structure of the physical universe, and space is merely a byproduct. According to Gunther Kletetschka, a geologist — not a physicist, you’ll ...

The first time you experience weightlessness in space, Tom Marshburn told me, all the noise and pressure of launch suddenly disappear. One moment, the roar of engines shakes every bone in your body; ...

Einstein's theory of general relativity views time similarly to width, height, and length. As such, both time and space can be curved by gravity. This effectively means that time is slower the closer ...

Oftentimes, we think of space as an endless, mostly empty vacuum, a silent backdrop where planets, stars, and galaxies play out their dance. We also think of time as something separate, a steady ...