This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American When Max Born addressed the South Indian ...

A crucial number that rules the universe goes big in a strange quantum material. The fine-structure constant is about 10 times its normal value in a type of material called quantum spin ice, ...

Billions of years ago the strength of the electromagnetic interaction was different at opposite ends of universe. That’s the surprising conclusion of a group of physicists in Australia, who have ...

Images made with the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii show how light from two distant galaxies is distorted into multiple images. UC Davis astronomers have made a new estimate of the Hubble Constant, ...

A fundamental constant of the universe may not be soconstant after all, according to a new study. Recent observations of distant galaxies suggest that thestrength of the electromagnetic force ? the so ...

The long-standing problem of the cosmological constant, described both as “the worst prediction in the history of physics” and by Einstein as his “biggest blunder”, is being tackled with renewed ...

Sound has a speed limit. Under normal circumstances, its waves can travel no faster than about 36 kilometers per second, physicists propose October 9 in Science Advances. Sound zips along at different ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about physics, science, academia, and pop culture. One promising avenue for this sort of study is a search for changes in ...

One of the most dissatisfying aspects of modern physics is the fundamental constants. It’s not that they are constant that bothers anyone, it is their very existence that is offensive to ...

For the past generation, we've recognized that our Universe is a particularly dark place. Sure, it's filled with stars, galaxies, and a slew of light-emitting phenomena everywhere we look. But each ...