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In the last decades of his life, Albert Einstein hoped to unite his description of gravity with existing models of electromagnetism under a single master theory. It’s a quest that continues to vex theoretical physicists to this day. Two of our best models of reality – Einstein’s general theory of relativity and the laws of … Read more
What happens to information after it has passed beyond the event horizon of a black hole? There have been suggestions that the geometry of wormholes might help us solve this vexing problem – but the math has been tricky, to say the least. In a new paper, an international team of physicists has found … Read more
Both quantum computing and machine learning have been touted as the next big computer revolution for a fair while now. However, experts have pointed out that these techniques aren’t generalized tools – they will only be the great leap forward in computer power for very specialized algorithms, and even more rarely will they be able … Read more
Physicists have measured time dilation on the smallest scale ever using an atomic clock made of thousands of ultracold atoms formed into a stack of pancake-shaped blobs Physics 16 February 2022 By Alex Wilkins Time dilation has been measured inside a tiny atomic clock Jacobson/NIST The world’s most precise atomic clock has confirmed that the … Read more
These are boom times for astronomers hunting black holes. The biggest ones—supermassive black holes that can weigh billions of suns—have been found at the centers of most every galaxy, and we have even managed to image one. Meanwhile, researchers now routinely detect gravitational waves rippling through the universe from smaller merging black holes. Closer to … Read more
In 1974 Stephen Hawking theorized that black holes are not black but slowly emit thermal radiation. Hawking’s prediction shook physics to its core because it implied that black holes cannot last forever and that they instead, over eons, evaporate into nothingness—except, however, for one small problem: there is simply no way to see such faint … Read more
In 1974 Stephen Hawking theorized that black holes are not black but slowly emit thermal radiation. Hawking’s prediction shook physics to its core because it implied that black holes cannot last forever and that they instead, over eons, evaporate into nothingness—except, however, for one small problem: there is simply no way to see such faint … Read more
In 1797, English scientist Henry Cavendish measured the strength of gravity with a contraption made of lead spheres, wooden rods and wire. In the 21st century, scientists are doing something very similar with rather more sophisticated tools: atoms. Gravity might be an early subject in introductory physics classes, but that doesn’t mean scientists aren’t still trying to … Read more
One fast-growing rocket start-up is 3D printing its way to space. The space industry is in the middle of a historic boom. As industry giants take their first leaps and crewed voyages to outer space, new, smaller rocket companies continue to crop up, adding to the brewing frenzy to get to space faster, cheaper and … Read more
What started in 1989 as an e-mail list for a few dozen string theorists has now grown to a collection of more than two million papers—and the central hub for physicists, astronomers, computer scientists, mathematicians and other researchers. On January 3 the preprint server arXiv.org crossed the milestone with a numerical analysis paper entitled “Affine … Read more