Physics
Holograms Might Save Physics
Even though the guts of General Relativity are obtusely mathematical, and for decades was relegated to math departments rather than…
Why the Universe Might be a Hologram
A quarter century ago, physicist Juan Maldacena proposed the AdS/CFT correspondence, an intriguing holographic connection between gravity in a three-dimensional…
The Strangest Coincidence in Physics: The AdS/CFT Correspondence
Attempts to turn string theory into a workable theory of nature have led to the potential conclusion that our universe…
Why String Theory Requires Extra Dimensions
String theory found its origins in an attempt to understand the nascent experiments revealing the strong nuclear force. Eventually another…
Scientists are Recommending IceCube Should be Eight Times Bigger
The IceCube Neutrino Observatory, operated by the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-M), located at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica,…
Communicating With a Relativistic Spacecraft Gets Pretty Weird
Someday, in the not-too-distant future, humans may send robotic probes to explore nearby star systems. These robot explorers will likely…
The Second Most Energetic Cosmic Ray Ever Found
"Oh My God," someone must have said in 1991 when researchers detected the most energetic cosmic ray ever to strike…
Why Even Einstein Couldn’t Unite Physics
Near the end of his life Einstein worked tirelessly to find a way to unite electromagnetism with gravity. He could…
How Einstein Unlocked the Quantum Universe and Created the Photon
It started with a simple experiment that was all the rage in the early 20th century. And as is usually…
How to Think About a Four-Dimensional Universe
In Einstein's famous theory of relativity the concepts of immutable space and time aren’t just put aside, they’re explicitly and…