Physics

Physicists have yet to pinpoint the hypothetical matter that keeps galaxies from flying apart. Now they have a new focus.

A better way to secure digital payments.

The story behind the scare that an atomic bomb would ignite the atmosphere into a fireball.

Ultracold gases in the lab could help scientists better understand the universe.

Invisible cloaks. Ghost imaging. Scientists are manipulating light in ways that were once only science fiction.

By measuring inflated helium nuclei, physicists have challenged our best understanding of the force that binds protons and neutrons.

For cyclists, it’s a drag when you don’t shave your legs.

Physicist Alan Lightman on evolution and atheism, creativity and spirituality.

How a gravitational wave background re-opens the book on general relativity.

A new analysis argues that ubiquitous eruptions in the sun’s corona explain the vast flow of charged particles seen streaming out through the solar system.

If the electron’s charge wasn’t perfectly round, it could reveal the existence of hidden particles. A new measurement approaches perfection.

Richard Feynman’s path integral is both a powerful prediction machine and a philosophy about how the world is. But physicists are still struggling to figure out how to use it, and what it means.