Stories by Anil Ananthaswamy

Outcomes in quantum mechanics depend on observations. But must the observer be human?

Domain walls, long a divisive topic in physics, may be ideal explanations for some bizarre cosmic quirks

Solving a notorious quantum quandary could require abandoning some of science’s most cherished assumptions about the physical world

The AdS/CFT duality conjecture suggests our universe is a hologram, enabling significant discoveries in the 25 years since it was first proposed

The Ads/CFT duality conjecture suggests our universe is a hologram, enabling significant discoveries in the 25 years since it was first proposed

Vast reaches of mostly empty space could offer superior odds for detecting the invisible substance thought to make up more than 80 percent of the material in the universe

A debate over conflicting measurements of key cosmological properties is set to shape the next decade of astronomy and astrophysics

Subtle signals from black hole mergers might confirm the existence of “Hawking radiation”—and gravitational-wave detectors may have already seen them

A growing number of galaxies seem to be bereft of the mysterious substance, posing fresh challenges for some of cosmology’s most cherished theories

Measuring the time it takes particles to travel between two points may be the best test yet for Bohmian mechanics

Originally built to speed up calculations, a machine-learning system is now making shocking progress at the frontiers of experimental quantum physics

Astronomers hope to use innovations from the subatomic world to construct breathtakingly large arrays of optical observatories

Instruments deployed on missions to the lunar far side might give us an unprecedented view of the early universe

Gauging whether or not we dwell inside someone else’s computer may come down to advanced AI research—or measurements at the frontiers of cosmology

Capable of connecting eight or more users across distances of 17 kilometers, the demonstration is another milestone toward developing a fully quantum Internet

A new experiment tracks the transit time of particles burrowing through barriers, revealing previously unknown details of a deeply counterintuitive phenomenon

The tenets of Thomas Bayes, an 18th-century statistician and minister, underpin the latest estimates of the prevalence of extraterrestrial life

The discrepancy could be a statistical fluke—or a sign that physicists will need to revise the standard model of cosmology

For better or worse, machine learning and big data are poised to transform the study of the heavens

Breakthrough demonstrations using defective diamonds, high-flying drones, laser-bathed crystals and other exotica suggest practical, unhackable quantum networks are within reach

A proposed experiment to swap fundamental properties between photons carries profound implications for our understanding of reality itself

Stemming from the “F-theory” branch of string theory, each solution replicates key features of the standard model of particle physics

The latest disagreement over the universe’s expansion rate suggests researchers may be on the threshold of revolutionary discoveries

Nobel laureate George Smoot claims LIGO has observed amplified signals of black hole mergers from the very distant universe, but LIGO scientists disagree