Why is there something rather than nothing? Using a Socratic approach, we survey the best scientific ideas in physics ...

Nearly 50 years ago, physicists floated a bold idea: our universe might be stuck in a false vacuum. This state feels stable, but deep down, it's not. Over enormous timescales, it could suddenly tip ...

(via Sabine Hossenfelder) Quantum fluctuations happen everywhere, all the time, and in principle they can become arbitrarily large. So if we wait long enough at the end of the universe, brains can ...

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The early universe experienced a phase of rapid expansion, known as inflation. For decades, cosmologists assumed that this expansion was powered by a new entity in the universe, known as the inflaton.

Our entire reality could – in theory – be built on a bed of sand, teetering on the brink of collapse. If so, a new device developed by a collaboration of physicists in Europe might give us some idea ...

Theoretical physicists are trying to understand how the many possibilities that exist in quantum physics can become 'real.' A new model developed by UC Davis researchers suggests that there may be ...

In the early universe, moments after the Big Bang and cosmic inflation, clusters of exotic, massive particles could have ...

For years, the idea that reality might be a sophisticated computer program has drifted from late-night dorm debates into ...

What exactly is … everything? What is space-time? At one extreme, you’ve got the weird rules of quantum physics that deal with subatomic particles. At the other extreme, you’ve got the vast expanses ...

“In both quantum gravity and classical gravity, spacetime must be undergoing violent and random fluctuations all around us, but on a scale which we haven’t yet been able to detect,” said Zach ...

Billions, perhaps trillions, of years from now, long after the sun has engulfed Earth, cosmologists expect the universe will end. Some wrestle with whether it is more likely to collapse under its ...