It was mid-May of last year when we realized we were onto something. We were measuring the electrical properties of a pellet squeezed between two diamonds in an anvil. The anvil could…

“Even in principle, one cannot demand an alibi of an electron!”Hermann Weyl, The Theory of Groups and Quantum Mechanics (1950) Have you ever heard the story of Martin Guerre? He…

It is the biggest of problems, it is the smallest of problems. At present physicists have two separate rulebooks explaining how nature works. There is general relativity, which beautifully…

Lawrence Krauss is a rare animal.He is a physicist with landmark results under his belt, including the prediction that most of the universe’s energy is stored in free space. He is…

It’s time we thought again about quantum theory. There’s nothing actually wrong with the theory itself—it works fantastically well for understanding how atoms and subatomic particles…

The adventures of the classic science-fiction novel Flatland by Edwin Abbott have sprung to life. The novel is narrated by a two-dimensional creature who calls himself “A Square,”…

Whenever you say anything about your daily life, a scale is implied. Try it out. “I’m too busy” only works for an assumed time scale: today, for example, or this week. Not this…

Watching Peter Woit lecture on quantum mechanics to a class at Columbia University—speaking softly, tapping out equations on a blackboard—it’s hard to imagine why a Harvard physicist…

Antonio Ereditato insists that our interview be carried out through Skype with both cameras on. Just the other side of middle age, his salt-and-pepper hair frames wide open eyes and…

A low-flying airplane buzzes along the coast of Greenland, hovering over a glacier. The belly of the plane holds a laser that bounces light off the glacier’s face. As the light beam…