For their latest magic trick, physicists have done the quantum equivalent of conjuring energy out of thin air. It’s a feat that seems to fly in the face of physical law and common sense. “You can’t extract energy directly from …
Our universe has a beginning. And someday, it will have an end too — but which one? As the cosmos expands and the stars and galaxies grow dim, will everything slowly become colder and more isolated? Could the dark energy …
I have a confession: When I was 4, I was kicked out of ballet class for asking too many questions. I asked why a lot, like any kid. And I guess the teacher didn’t appreciate it. Luckily for me, the …
Every year, around 1,000 Type Ia supernovas erupt in the sky. These stellar explosions brighten and then fade away in a pattern so repeatable that they’re used as “standard candles” — objects so uniformly bright that astronomers can deduce the …
The most powerful formula in physics starts with a slender S, the symbol for a sort of sum known as an integral. Further along comes a second S, representing a quantity known as action. Together, these twin S’s form the …
A group of astronomers poring over data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has glimpsed light from a rare isotope of helium in a distant galaxy, which could indicate the presence of the universe’s very first generation of stars. …
Physicists have coaxed particles of light into undergoing opposite transformations simultaneously, like a human turning into a werewolf as the werewolf turns into a human. In carefully engineered circuits, the photons act as if time were flowing in a quantum …
The cosmos seems to have a preference for things that are round. Planets and stars tend to be spheres because gravity pulls clouds of gas and dust toward the center of mass. The same holds for black holes — or, …
The cracks in cosmology were supposed to take a while to appear. But when the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) opened its lens last spring, extremely distant yet very bright galaxies immediately shone into the telescope’s field of view. “They …
In a sunny lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, two starfish fought over their prey. Overlapping arms pinned a hunk of thawing cocktail shrimp against the side of the tank. Thousands of suction cups rippled furiously against the glass …
In what specific cases do quantum computers surpass their classical counterparts? That’s a hard question to answer, in part because today’s quantum computers are finicky things, plagued with errors that can pile up and spoil their calculations. By one measure, …
The way electrons interact with photons of light is a key part of many modern technologies, from lasers to solar panels to LEDs. But the interaction is inherently a weak one because of a major mismatch in scale: A wavelength