Quantum mechanics isn’t rocket science. But it’s well on the way to take the place of rocket science as the go-to metaphor for unintelligible math. Quantum mechanics, you have…

If a philosopher starts speaking about elementary particles, run.PinterestI recently discovered panpsychism. That’s the idea that all matter—animate or inanimate—is conscious,…

The great mystery of consciousness is why matter lights up with felt experience. After all, we are composed of particles indistinguishable from those swirling around in the sun; the…

Reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine’s Abstractions blog.A photograph of the infant cosmos reveals the precise amounts of dark matter and dark energy in the universe, leaving…

An underreported aspect of the climate crisis is that archaeological sites, cultural landscapes, biodiversity, and distributions of flora and fauna—much of which modern people will…

As a writer on physics, I’m always seeking new metaphors for understanding Einstein’s general theory of relativity, and while working on my last book, Spooky Action at a Distance,…

For human travelers, the iconic moment of space exploration occurred a half-century ago, when Neil Armstrong planted the first human boot-print on the moon. But if you don’t mind…

One of the greatest debates in the long history of astronomy has been that of exceptionalism versus mediocrity—and one of the great satisfactions of modern times has been watching…

The universe is the grandest merger story that there is. Complete with mysterious origins, forces of light and darkness, and chemistry complex enough to make the chemical conglomerate…

There was little expectation that anything important would occur at the 1933 meeting of the American Physical Society, which began on December 15 in the main lecture room of the physics…