An obscure theory of elementary particles proved to be key to China’s re-emergence as a scientific nation after the Cultural Revolution had stalled its development. Robert P Crease finds out more from ...

There’s a lot of discussion about “time” in the world of quantum physics. At the micro level, where waves and particles can behave the same, time tends to be much more malleable than it is in our ...

Right now, molecules in the air are moving around you in chaotic and unpredictable ways. To make sense of such systems, ...

Like stretch marks left on skin that expanded too quickly or cracks embedded in freezing ice, cosmic strings are artifacts of ...

Time feels like the most basic feature of reality. Seconds tick, days pass and everything from planetary motion to human memory seems to unfold along a single, irreversible direction. We are born and ...

Imagine trying to prove that 1+1=2, but when you do the calculations, it turns out that the result is off by 0.1%. That scenario is similar to the riddle that’s facing physicists worldwide as they try ...

For decades, physicists have accepted that the universe has two sizes: small and large. So-called classical equations govern big objects like baseballs and galaxies, while quantum mechanics describes ...

When molecular biologist Francis Crick tripped on the psychedelic drug LSD in 1953, his mind famously pulled together all of his previous research on human DNA to conceive of the image of a double ...

An international team of researchers shows through a concrete theoretical experiment that the prediction by standard complex quantum theory cannot be expressed by its real counterpart and ratifies its ...