In an unprecedented step, researchers crafted a detailed model compatible with the universe’s accelerated expansion.

An illustration of two black holes about to merge and emitting copious gravitational waves. And as the numbers of gravitational-wave observations have increased, physicists’ careful modeling is ...

A decade ago astrophysicists at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), operated by the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ...

String theorists are shifting focus to solve some rather sticky problems in physics. Over the past few years, string theory has been less about trying to find a unifying description of all forces and ...

String theory began over 50 years ago as a way to understand the strong nuclear force. Since then, it’s grown to become a theory of everything, capable of explaining the nature of every particle, ...

String theory, simultaneously one of the most promising and controversial ideas in modern physics, may be more capable of helping probe the inner workings of subatomic particles than was previously ...

Such was the case until December 1984, when John Schwarz, of the California Institute of Technology, and Michael Green, then at Queen Mary College, published a once-in-a-generation paper showing that ...

In 1980, Stephen Hawking gave his first lecture as Lucasian Professor at the University of Cambridge. The lecture was called "Is the end in sight for theoretical physics?" Forty-five years later, ...

This story is free to read because readers choose to support LAist. If you find value in independent local reporting, make a donation to power our newsroom today. A provocative branch of physics ...

Visualization of the allowed values of "dial settings" in the scattering amplitudes that describe the probability for particles to interact in the models introduced in this new work. The regions in ...

Paul M. Sutter is an astrophysicist at SUNY Stony Brook and the Flatiron Institute, host of Ask a Spaceman and Space Radio, and author of "Your Place in the Universe." Sutter contributed this article ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. The Universe is out there, waiting for you to discover it. String theory is perhaps the most controversial big idea in all of ...