Physics

Is now the most exciting point in human history?

28 September 2024 9:00 am

Since today’s computers can process information beyond human capabilities, we are on a precipice never faced before, says Yuval Noah Harari, in another sweeping narrative

Seeing the dark in a new light

16 December 2023 9:00 am

Even in the deepest mineshaft we’re surrounded by light we can’t see, explains Jacqueline Yallop, drawing on quantum physics to help dispel ordinary night terrors

Circular arguments

1 July 2023 9:00 am

Aristotle had long proved that the Earth was spherical, and even the illiterate masses of early medieval Europe were aware of the fact, says James Hannam

A feast for geeks: The Making of Incarnation, by Tom McCarthy, reviewed

27 November 2021 9:00 am

Since the publication of his debut, Remainder, Tom McCarthy has established himself as the Christopher Nolan of literary fiction: his…

The joy and suffering of writing a book

3 April 2021 9:00 am

Spring is coming. There was snow in the garden till last week, here in Canada, where I have been spending…

Small things misbehaving leads to the greatest question of all

3 April 2021 9:00 am

Helgoland is a craggy German island in the North Sea. Barely bigger than a few fields, it reaches high above…

A singular mind: Roger Penrose on his Nobel Prize

19 December 2020 9:00 am

Roger Penrose on his Nobel Prize, the beauty of physics – and why AI is nothing to fear

Things mankind was not supposed to know — the dark side of science

14 November 2020 9:00 am

One day someone is going to have to write the definitive study of Wikipedia’s influence on letters. What, after all,…

How time vanishes: the more we study it, the more protean it seems

27 June 2020 9:00 am

Some books elucidate their subject, mapping and sharpening its boundaries. The Clock Mirage, by the mathematician Joseph Mazur, is not…

The only thing that baffled Einstein was his own popularity

11 May 2019 9:00 am

On 6 November 1919, at a joint meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society and the Royal Society, held at London’s…

James Clerk Maxwell: funny, flippant and charming, with an extraordinarily fertile mechanical imagination

The powerful magnetism of James Clerk Maxwell

16 February 2019 9:00 am

Chances are, you are reading these words in some room or other. Build a wall down the middle of it,…

A document of a mass human experiment that is moving, revolting, violent and extraordinarily pornographic

Dau is the strangest and most unsettling piece of art to come out of Russia in years

2 February 2019 9:00 am

Dau is not so much a film as a document of a mass human experiment. The result is dark, brilliant…

Claire Foy accepts the best actress Emmy for her role as Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown. Photo: Getty

Men and women are born equal but different. Deal with it

22 September 2018 9:00 am

I was delighted to see Claire Foy win an Emmy award for her portrayal of the Queen in the fine…

Wonder is all around

25 November 2017 9:00 am

Different people find different things impressive. Some claim, for instance, to experience a sense of wonder at the fact of…

The Ant Nebula, located a mere 3,000–6,000 light years from Earth in the southern constellation Norma

Physicists have stranger ideas than the most preposterous Old Testament preacher

22 August 2015 9:00 am

The beliefs of physicists are infinitely kookier than anything in the Bible, says Alexander Masters

White dwarfs and neutron stars — stepping-stones to the black hole

30 May 2015 9:00 am

The idea of black holes sounds so quintessentially modern and 20th-century that it may come as a surprise to learn…

What are 16-year-olds supposed to learn by making posters?

25 October 2014 9:00 am

My niece, Lara, 15, has a mind like a surgical blade. On any subject, from calculus to The X Factor,…