21 November 2022
Algorithms can pore over astrophysical data to identify underlying equations. Now, physicists are trying to figure out how to imbue these “machine theorists” with the ability to find deeper laws of nature
27 January 2021
From the big bang onwards you might think we know a lot about the universe’s first fraction of a second. But that just isn’t true. For physicist, Dan Hooper, solving these questions involves radically rethinking what we think we know about the universe’s...
3 June 2020
Nobel prizewinner Jim Peebles introduced dark matter and dark energy into our standard model of the cosmos – but that is only an approximation to a deeper truth, he says.
13 May 2020
Multiple indications seem to be showing that something is manipulating the universe beyond the four basic forces we know – and we are starting to work out what it is
30 October 2019
The luminiferous aether has become a byword for failed ideas. Now it is being revived to explain dark matter and dark energy, and potentially unify physics
11 September 2019
Einstein’s framework for the universe, space-time, is at odds with quantum theory. Overcoming this clash and others is vital to unravelling the true nature of the cosmos
3 July 2019
We all feel the passing of time, but nothing in physics suggests it is a fundamental property of the universe. So where does our sense of time’s flow come from?
15 May 2019
40 years ago, a radical new design of telescope showed that two cosmic objects were one – confirming a prediction of Einstein’s theories made decades earlier
16 April 2019
From wormhole passages to white hole escape routes, no one knows for certain what lurks beyond a black hole’s event horizon – so choose your own unsettling fate
16 April 2019
Einstein’s genius casts a long shadow over fundamental physics. The documentary Chasing Einstein wonders if reverence for the past is blocking breakthroughs
