Physics tells us a lot about what we can do. We can use it to predict the motions of the stars to the most fundamental constituents of matter and nearly everything in between; physics can be a ...

At 25, Kurt Gödel proved there can never be a mathematical “theory of everything.” Columnist Natalie Wolchover explores the ...

Cosmic testbed A computer simulation of the black-hole collision that produced the first gravitational wave signal to be detected, GW150914. (Courtesy: Simulating eXtreme Spacetimes (SXS) project/LIGO ...

With World War I raging on throughout Europe, Hilbert could be found sitting in his office at the great university at Göttingen trying and trying again to understand one idea—Einstein’s new theory of ...

Noether's theorem is a thread woven into the fabric of the science. We are able to understand the world because it is predictable. If we drop a rubber ball, it falls down rather than flying up. But ...

Quantum space and time Physicists have developed no-go theorems that limit quantum processes in space–time causality. (Courtesy: iStock/piranka) Physicists have developed a new theoretical framework ...

WE PHYSICISTS have a habit of depicting our discipline as “beautiful” or “elegant”, where an outsider might be forgiven for seeing no more than an endless morass of equations. In an ideal world, those ...