In 2009, theoretical physicist Erik Verlinde proposed a radical reformulation of gravity. In his theory, gravity is not a fundamental force but rather a manifestation of deeper hidden processes. But in the 15 years since then, there hasn’t been much experimental support for the idea. So where do we go next? Emergence is common throughout […]
The collision of two neutron stars around 130 million light-years from Earth, and the unique physics this merger created, may have shed new light on dark matter. New research conducted by Washington University physicist Bhupal Dev suggests the neutron star merger, detected here on Earth as the gravitational wave signal GW170817, could help place constraints […]
Naples, Italy — Beneath the honking horns and operatic yelling of Naples, the most blissfully chaotic city in Italy, archeologist Raffaella Bosso descends into the deafening silence of an underground maze, zigzagging back in time roughly 2,300 years. Before the Ancient Romans, it was the Ancient Greeks who colonized Naples, leaving behind traces of life, […]
CERN’s new supercollider will be 8 times more powerful than the LHC, the largest and most powerful in the world. Physicists could use it to solve mysteries about the nature of our universe. Based on their current timeline, the first phase of the new collider could be up and running by 2045. For decades, physicists […]
I moved to Rockford involuntarily in 2013. My entire life and plan for my life was a vision of physics education in the Chicago suburbs — the home of two national labs, Fermi Lab and Argonne, the homes of discoveries like the proton and solar wind and or course the atomic bomb and even the […]
An intergalactic ring-shaped superstructure of galaxies and galaxy clusters — so large it defies explanation — has been discovered. This is a structure that lives so deep in the universe that we see it as it was some 9.2 billion years ago. The huge superstructure, nicknamed the “Big Ring,” spans 1.3 billion light-years in diameter […]
If you drop a light object and a heavy object from a tower, which one reaches the ground first? As you may recall from high school physics, this is a trick question. Neglecting air resistance, they both fall the same way and reach the ground at the same time – gravity means that their speeds […]
The past year was a big win for particle physics, as experiments and nature conspired to produce some truly stunning results. Here are the biggest stories about the smallest particles from 2023. 1. Here comes the sun goddess An illustration showing a cosmic ray hitting the Telescope Array experiment’s detectors. In 1992, astronomers were stunned […]
Imagine using your cellphone to control the activity of your own cells to treat injuries and disease. It sounds like something from the imagination of an overly optimistic science fiction writer. But this may one day be a possibility through the emerging field of quantum biology. Over the past few decades, scientists have made incredible […]
An artist’s concept of a tidal disruption event (TDE) that happens when a star passes fatally close to a supermassive black hole, which reacts by launching a relativistic jet. The gravitational pull from black holes is so strong that nothing can escape its grasp. So could we ever harness the gargantuan power of black holes […]
The northern and southern lights are among nature’s most spectacular sights, providing beautiful light shows that dance across the night skies — but what exactly is an aurora? Auroras, also known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), are caused by the sun’s energy and particles interacting with Earth’s atmosphere as […]