Particles

Loose Ends: String Theory and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory

Join leading minds in theoretical physics for a whirlwind ride through the twists and turns of string theory — its past, its future, and what it tells us about the search for the universe’s final theory.

World Science Festival

Scientists Detail Mechanism Behind Gamma-Ray Bursts

Scientists have uncovered the mechanism behind gamma-ray bursts, intense flashes of high-energy radiation originating from space.

UPI

What a Lack of Unexplained Gory Deaths Tells Us About Dark Matter

A dark-matter particle of a certain size range would cause an injury like an exotic gunshot wound if it hit a human being. Fortunately, that’s apparently not the size these particles come in.

Emerging Technology from the arXiv, MIT Technology Review

Casting a Wide Net

In their quest to discover physics beyond the Standard Model, physicists weigh the pros and cons of different search strategies.

Symmetry

For a Split Second, a (Simulated) Particle Went Backward in Time

Using a quantum computer, physicists successfully reversed time for an artificial atom.

The New York Times

Dark Matter Detector Makes Incredible Neutrino Observation

A detector designed to hunt for dark matter has made a particle physics observation that will hopefully help physicists establish important truths about our Universe.

Gizmodo

Physicists Aim to Catch Slow-Decaying Dark Particle Inside LHC

“One particularly interesting possibility is that these long-lived dark particles are coupled to the Higgs boson in some fashion - that the Higgs is actually a portal to the dark world,” physicist LianTao Wang said.

UPI

How Long Do Neutrons Live? Physicists Close in on Decades-Old Puzzle

Researchers are narrowing down their measurements of how long the subatomic particle survives on its own.

Nature

Einstein’s Quantum Riddle

Join scientists as they grab light from across the universe to prove quantum entanglement is real.

NOVA, WGBH

Scientists Make Unprecedented Measurement of Electrons

Scientists have made an unprecedented close examination of the electron, providing fascinating new insights into the nature of particles, energy, and forces at infinitesimally small scales.

Newsweek

Three New Physics Experiments Could Revamp the Standard Model

Physicists build giant machines to study tiny particles.

Science News

After Years of Effort, Physicists Spot Higgs Boson Decaying in Most Ordinary Way

Physicists have spotted the Higgs decaying into a particle called a bottom quark and its antimatter counterpart, an antibottom quark.

Science

Quantum Chicken-or-Egg Experiment Blurs the Distinction Between Before and After

A new experiment shows that when fiddling with a photon, it can be impossible to say in which order two events occur, obliterating our common sense notion of before and after and, potentially, muddying the concept of causality.

Science

Is Gravity Quantum?

The ongoing search for the graviton — the proposed fundamental particle carrying gravitational force — is a crucial step in physicists’ long journey toward a theory of everything.

Scientific American

The Alluring Beauty of Supersymmetry

In this excerpt from Lost in Math, Sabine Hossenfelder explains how the idea of supersymmetry is just too beautiful for scientists to ignore.

Science Friday

Demon in the Details of Quantum Thermodynamics

Researchers find quantum ‘Maxwell’s Demon’ may give up information to extract work.

Washington University in St. Louis

The Peculiar Math That Could Underlie the Laws of Nature

New findings are fueling an old suspicion that fundamental particles and forces spring from strange eight-part numbers called “octonions.”

Quanta Magazine

New Higgs Boson Discovery Could Help Solve Cosmic Puzzle

Six years after officially discovering the Higgs boson, particle physicists are announcing that they’ve spotted the Higgs in another way.

Gizmodo

Answering the Cosmic Riddle of Existence

You exist. You shouldn’t. Stars and galaxies and planets exist. They shouldn’t.

World Science Festival

Step Aside CERN: There’s a Cheaper Way to Break Open Physics

How tabletop experiments could find evidence of new particles, offering a glimpse beyond the standard model.

Nature

This Particle Breaks Time Symmetry

Increasing entropy is not the only process that’s asymmetric in time.

Veritasium