As technology improves, scientists discover new ways to search for theorized dark matter particles called axions. In the early 1970s, physics had a symmetry problem. According to the Standard Model, ...
A possible explanation for the lightness of neutrinos could help answer some big questions about the universe. Mass is a fundamental property of matter, but there’s still a lot about it we don’t ...
Our best model of particle physics explains only about 5 percent of the universe. The Standard Model is a thing of beauty. It is the most rigorous theory of particle physics, incredibly precise and ...
Breakthroughs in physics sometimes require an assist from the field of mathematics—and vice versa. In 1912, Albert Einstein, then a 33-year-old theoretical physicist at the Eidgenössische Technische ...
The Planck scale sets the universe’s minimum limit, beyond which the laws of physics break. In the late 1890s, physicist Max Planck proposed a set of units to simplify the expression of physics laws.
Although scientists have yet to find the spooky stuff, they aren’t completely in the dark. There are a lot of things scientists don’t know about dark matter: Can we catch it in a detector? Can we make ...
Neutrinos don’t seem to get their mass in the same way as other particles in the Standard Model. In 1998, researchers made a discovery that challenged their understanding of particle physics and ...
The fundamental particle of light is both ordinary and full of surprises. What physicists refer to as photons, other people might just call light. As quanta of light, photons are the smallest possible ...
Matter and antimatter behave differently. Scientists hope that investigating how might someday explain why we exist. One of the great puzzles for scientists is why there is more matter than antimatter ...
A forthcoming upgrade to the IceCube detector will provide deeper insights into the elusive particles. Underneath the vast, frozen landscape of the South Pole lies IceCube, a gigantic observatory ...
One of the latest discoveries from the LHC takes the properties of photons beyond what your electrodynamics teacher will tell you in class. Professor Anne Sickles is currently teaching a laboratory ...
Learn about the Standard Model of particle physics and how physicists use it to predict the (subatomic) future. In ancient times, Greeks interested in forecasting the future would voyage on the ...