Physics, Pixelated

A dim museum hall of marble pedestals holding a rainbow star, a pulsar in a glass dome and a crystal, with one pedestal left empty

Who Really Discovered It? Credit, Myths and Mis...

Physics history is full of single names attached to shared work. Here are nine cases where the real story is more interesting, told from primary sources and without inventing heroes...

Who Really Discovered It? Credit, Myths and Mis...

Physics history is full of single names attached to shared work. Here are nine cases where the real story is more interesting, told from primary sources and without inventing heroes...

The glowing golden fog of the early universe as the first light nuclei fuse together in bright sparks

How Did the First Elements Form? Big Bang Nucle...

Almost all the hydrogen and helium in the universe was made in its first few minutes. Here is how that cosmic kitchen worked, how we check it, and the two...

How Did the First Elements Form? Big Bang Nucle...

Almost all the hydrogen and helium in the universe was made in its first few minutes. Here is how that cosmic kitchen worked, how we check it, and the two...

A tightly packed nucleus of red protons and blue neutrons bound by crackling sparks of the strong force, with faint electron orbits

What Holds the Nucleus Together? The Strong For...

Protons repel each other, yet nuclei hold together. The answer is the strong force, first pictured by Hideki Yukawa as an exchange of mesons and now understood through quarks and...

What Holds the Nucleus Together? The Strong For...

Protons repel each other, yet nuclei hold together. The answer is the strong force, first pictured by Hideki Yukawa as an exchange of mesons and now understood through quarks and...

A starship with blazing engines racing toward a burst of blue-white light it can never overtake

Why Is the Speed of Light the Limit? Relativity...

Nothing with mass can reach the speed of light, and no signal can beat it. Here is why relativity says so, how muons and GPS satellites prove it every day,...

Why Is the Speed of Light the Limit? Relativity...

Nothing with mass can reach the speed of light, and no signal can beat it. Here is why relativity says so, how muons and GPS satellites prove it every day,...

A black hole rimmed with a thin ring of lensed light, faint sparks of radiation rising off its edge above a cratered moon

Do Black Holes Evaporate? Hawking Radiation, th...

In 1974 Stephen Hawking predicted that black holes are not completely black: they should glow faintly and slowly evaporate. The prediction is widely accepted in theory, has never been observed...

Do Black Holes Evaporate? Hawking Radiation, th...

In 1974 Stephen Hawking predicted that black holes are not completely black: they should glow faintly and slowly evaporate. The prediction is widely accepted in theory, has never been observed...

A glowing cubic lattice of nearly motionless atoms in an ice cavern beside a tall frosted thermometer

What Happens at Absolute Zero? Why −273.15 °C C...

Absolute zero is the bottom of the temperature scale, but physics says you can never quite get there. On the way down, matter turns superfluid, expels magnetic fields and piles...

What Happens at Absolute Zero? Why −273.15 °C C...

Absolute zero is the bottom of the temperature scale, but physics says you can never quite get there. On the way down, matter turns superfluid, expels magnetic fields and piles...