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When Coupled Volcanoes Talk, These Researchers Listen
Around the world, volcanologists are following the path of magma as it travels between connected volcanoes, in an effort that could lead to improved eruption forecasts.
Are Strings Still Our Best Hope for a Theory of Everything?
Columnist Natalie Wolchover examines the latest developments in the “forever war” over whether string theory can describe the world.
Where Some See Strings, She Sees a Space-Time Made of Fractals
Pushed down to a certain scale, the laws of physics seem to fall apart. Astrid Eichhorn, a leader in an area of study called asymptotic safety, thinks we just need to push a little further.
What Crystals Older Than the Sun Reveal About the Start of the Solar System
Microscopic crystals extracted from meteorites could help settle a debate about the birth of our patch of the Milky Way.
Climate Physicists Face the Ghosts in Their Machines: Clouds
The planet is getting hotter, but one factor in particular makes it hard to tell just how hot it will get. Physicists and computer scientists are racing to solve the problem of clouds.
Are the Mysteries of Quantum Mechanics Beginning To Dissolve?
Columnist Philip Ball thinks the phenomenon of decoherence might finally bridge the quantum-classical divide.
Physicists Make Electrons Flow Like Water
We describe electricity as a flow, but that’s not what happens in a typical wire. Physicists have begun to induce electrons to act like fluids, an effort that could illuminate new ways of thinking about quantum systems.
How Modern and Antique Technologies Reveal a Dynamic Cosmos
Today’s observatories document every pulse and flash in the sky each night. To understand how the cosmos has changed over longer periods, scientists rely on a more tactile technology.
Is Particle Physics Dead, Dying, or Just Hard?
Columnist Natalie Wolchover checks in with particle physicists more than a decade after the field entered a profound crisis.
