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‘Metaphysical Experiments’ Probe Our Hidden Assumptions About Reality
Experiments that test physics and philosophy "as a single whole" may be our only route to surefire knowledge about the universe.
Vacuum of Space to Decay Sooner Than Expected (but Still Not Soon)
One of the quantum fields that fills the universe is special because its default value seems poised to eventually change, changing everything.
What Could Explain the Gallium Anomaly?
Physicists have ruled out a mundane explanation for the strange findings of an old Soviet experiment, leaving open the possibility that the results point to a new fundamental particle.
How America’s Fastest Swimmers Use Math to Win Gold
Number theorist Ken Ono is teaching Olympians to swim more efficiently.
Tracing the Hidden Hand of Magnetism in the Galaxy
Susan Clark is helping to unravel the mysterious workings of the Milky Way’s magnetic field, a critical missing piece of the galactic puzzle.
How Is Science Even Possible?
How are scientists able to crack fundamental questions about nature and life? How does math make the complex cosmos understandable? In this episode, the physicist Nigel Goldenfeld and co-host Steven Strogatz explore the deep foundations of the scientific process.
The Enduring Mystery of How Water Freezes
Making ice requires more than subzero temperatures. The unpredictable process takes microscopic scaffolding, random jiggling and often a little bit of bacteria.
The New Math of How Large-Scale Order Emerges
The puzzle of emergence asks how regularities emerge on macro scales out of uncountable constituent parts. A new framework has researchers hopeful that a solution is near.
Mathematicians Attempt to Glimpse Past the Big Bang
By studying the geometry of model space-times, researchers offer alternative views of the universe’s first moments.