IN THE Antarctic, things happen at a glacial pace. Just ask Peter Gorham. For a month at a time, he and his colleagues would watch a giant balloon carrying a collection of antennas float high above the ice, scanning over a million square kilometres of the frozen landscape for evidence …
Read More »How one theory ties together everything we know about the universe
You can sip your coffee thanks to the fundamental forces of nature Vladimir Arndt / Alamy The following is an extract from our Lost in Space-Time newsletter. Each month, we hand over the keyboard to a physicist or mathematician to tell you about fascinating ideas from their corner of the universe. …
Read More »Dark stars may be waiting in a mirror universe for us to discover them
Physicists have proposed that a mirror universe alongside our own might explain dark matter – and we might be able to see traces of its stars Source link
Read More »Why the quantum universe is weirder than you think
The quantum realm is full of strange effects, but there’s a reason why everything looks normal from our point of view, writes physicist Sebastian Deffner Source link
Read More »Is space-time quantum? Six experiments that unpick the fabric of the universe
IF YOU could empty the universe, what would be left over? The underlying structure of the cosmos is called space-time, and it is often likened to a fabric. But “space-time fabric is a science-fiction term”, says Jonathan Oppenheim, a physicist at University College London. There is no consensus about what …
Read More »Extremely thin lightweight lenses take amazing images of the universe
An image of the North America Nebula taken with the metalens Courtesy of Joon-Suh Park To take high-quality images of the stars, astronomers usually need thick, curved lenses to bend the light precisely. But researchers have designed a flat lens that can take sharp images of the night sky thanks …
Read More »Rethinking reality: Is the entire universe a single quantum object?
DAVID PARKER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY DAVID PARKER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY IMAGINE you could see through everyday objects to the stuff they are made of. If you zoomed in on the arm of a chair, say, you would see that it is made of atoms. Zoom in again and you would see that …
Read More »Gravitational waves produce a background hum across the whole universe
Pulsars have helped reveal ripples in space-time throughout the universe NANOGrav The fabric of the universe is constantly rippling, according to astronomers who have discovered a background buzz of gravitational waves. These waves may be produced by supermassive black holes merging across the universe, but they might also have more …
Read More »Is the universe conscious? It seems impossible until you do the maths
THEY call it the “unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics”. Physicist Eugene Wigner coined the phrase in the 1960s to encapsulate the curious fact that merely by manipulating numbers we can describe and predict all manner of natural phenomena with astonishing clarity, from the movements of planets and the strange behaviour of …
Read More »Hubble tension: Have we been measuring the expansion of the universe wrong?
WENDY FREEDMAN is staring down the universe. For 40 years, she has been digging into the biggest secrets of the cosmos, patiently whittling down uncertainties to find the value of a number that defines the expansion of the universe, determines its age and seals its ultimate fate. Freedman, who works …
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