Many deserving potential awardees were snubbed by the Nobel committee. But this takes the cake. Every October, the Nobel foundation awards prizes celebrating the greatest advances in numerous scientific fields. Alfred […]

Even though it was the crowning achievement of Einstein’s career, he was only a small part of the full story. If you were a physicist in the early 20th century, there […]

As soon as you start thinking about energy and gravity, you’ll realize the need to go beyond it. When it comes to a science like physics, theoretical expectations must always be […]

The darkness of the night sky was a mystery for generations of humans. Here’s the reason why. From our perspective here in the Solar System, it makes absolute intuitive sense why […]

And why Einstein’s quest for unification was doomed from the start. If you wanted to answer the question of what’s truly fundamental in this Universe, you’d need to investigate matter and […]

If you understand gravity well enough, you might not even need a telescope to revolutionize astronomy. In science, advances arise at the intersection of theory and real-world observation. One of […]

The Solar System’s outermost, undisputed planet wasn’t discovered until the 19th century. Here’s how you can easily find it yourself this December. There’s no greater scientific thrill than discovering something […]

It’s not simply Hubble’s Law anymore, but the real history is far more complex than the stories you’ve heard. One of the most mind-blowing facts in our existence is that space […]

Every physical theory has constants in it. The gravitational constant is remarkably uncertain. When we first began formulating physical laws, we did so empirically: through experiments. Drop a ball off […]

Never draw a conclusion, no matter how ‘obvious,’ without doing the experiment first. We all love our most cherished ideas about how the world and the Universe works. Our conception […]

The story of John Couch Adams, “the man who failed to discover Neptune,” and his cosmic redemption. Perhaps its human nature to want to only think positive thoughts about our […]

If you haven’t finished your holiday shopping yet, consider these 10 gifts, good any time of year! One of the hardest things when it comes to holiday shopping is to find […]

A new look at the intertwined lives of two of the 20th century’s greatest minds. In the years prior to World War II, physics was in an odd, post-revolutionary state. Quantum […]

If you think we know it all, you’ll never be ready for the next big breakthrough. When you’re taught the scientific method, you think of a neat procedure you can […]

Very sure. Here’s how we know. You’ve no doubt heard that the Universe itself has been around for 13.8 billion years since the Big Bang, and that scientists are extremely confident […]

Gravitational waves and spacetime ripples have so much more to do with the Universe than just merging black holes. “The years of searching in the dark for a truth that one […]

Sometimes, designing a careful experiment and measuring absolutely no effect can be the most important result of all. “It appears, from all that precedes, reasonably certain that if there be any […]

One of the most famous quantum physicists of all makes his mark in space, 80 years after first predicting it. “What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed […]

How a little knowledge can bring about some huge misconceptions… and how to fix it. “Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover […]

Some things are held to a higher standard than mob rule. “The evidence at present available points strongly to the conclusion that the spirals are individual galaxies, or island universes, […]