General relativity

Renate Loll has helped pioneer a radically new approach to quantum gravity. She assumes that the fabric of space-time is a blend of all possible fabrics, and she has developed the computational tools needed to calculate the far-reaching implications of that assumption.

In three-dimensional space, the surface of a black hole must be a sphere. But a new result shows that in higher dimensions, an infinite number of configurations are possible.

Albert Einstein’s ideas about space-time aren’t exactly intuitive, and they aren’t exactly Einstein’s, either.

The solutions to Einstein’s equations that describe a spinning black hole won’t blow up, even when poked or prodded.

Surprising as it may sound, 107 years after the introduction of general relativity, the meanings of basic concepts are still being worked out.

The “gravitational memory effect” predicts that a passing gravitational wave should forever alter the structure of space-time. Physicists have linked the phenomenon to fundamental cosmic symmetries and a potential solution to the black hole information paradox.

Time was found to flow differently between the top and bottom of a single cloud of atoms. Physicists hope that such a system will one day help them combine quantum mechanics and Einstein’s theory of gravity.

Today’s powerful but little-understood artificial intelligence breakthroughs echo past examples of unexpected scientific progress.

A mathematical shortcut for analyzing black hole collisions works even in cases where it shouldn’t. As astronomers use it to search for new classes of hidden black holes, others wonder: Why?