One of the most awkward parts of writing a book is that, eventually, authors have to ask people for “blurbs” – the endorsements that you see on the cover of a book, encouraging you to buy it. I am now ...

Einstein's theory of general relativity views time similarly to width, height, and length. As such, both time and space can be curved by gravity. This effectively means that time is slower the closer ...

A mathematical test for the nature of space-time – the fabric of physical reality – may be the first step towards novel computer-like devices that process information using gravity. Eleftherios-Ermis ...

Oftentimes, we think of space as an endless, mostly empty vacuum, a silent backdrop where planets, stars, and galaxies play out their dance. We also think of time as something separate, a steady ...

Intuitively, we know what time is, but try to explain it, and we end up tying our minds in knots. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

The speed of light is the fastest anything can travel. What happens to a photon from a galaxy 25 million light years away on its journey toward Earth? When you purchase through links on our site, we ...

For more than a century, physics has treated space and time as the smooth stage on which the universe unfolds, a flexible fabric that bends but never breaks. A new wave of theories is now challenging ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. One July afternoon in 2024, Ryan Williams set out to prove himself wrong. Two months had passed since he’d hit upon a startling ...