Many theories are rock-solid: Scientists have just as much confidence in the theories of relativity, quantum mechanics, ...

Emmy Noether showed that fundamental physical laws are just a consequence of simple symmetries. A century later, her insights continue to shape physics. In the fall of 1915, the foundations of physics ...

Stress is a very real factor in the structure of our universe. Not the kind of stress that students experience when taking a ...

By turning a computation that once required weeks of supercomputer simulations into a calculation solvable in hours, the team has provided scientists with a powerful new lens to understand metallurgy, ...

After the star-studded mystery thriller The Number 23 debuted in cinemas in 2007, many people became convinced that they were seeing the eponymous number everywhere. I was in school at that time, and ...

String theory captured the hearts and minds of many physicists decades ago because of a beautiful simplicity. Zoom in far enough on a patch of space, the theory says, and you won’t see a menagerie of ...

JIM PEEBLES is widely known as the architect of modern cosmology – and its nice-guy-in-chief. Awarding his half-share of the 2019 Nobel prize for physics, the committee said he “took on the cosmos”, ...

This persnickety number determines the strength of magnetic fields. It figures in everything from motors and generators to audio speakers. Oh, and without it we’d live in eternal darkness.

A new theory suggests that gravity could possibly be the result of entropy. If true, this would mean that everything in the universe would fall apart if it all remained unchanged. This theory tries to ...

A radical theory that consistently unifies gravity and quantum mechanics while preserving Einstein's classical concept of spacetime has been announced in two papers published simultaneously by UCL ...