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September 1, 2012The Sciences
Next Steps in the Higgs Boson Hunt: Finding a new particle completes one puzzle and begins another; Abhishek Agarwal and Robert Garisto; Scientific American Volume 307, Issue 3; 10.1038/scientificamerican0912-20a; Originally published as "The Import of the Higgs Boson" in Scientific American Volume 307, Issue 3

July 14, 2011
Why Is Quantum Gravity So Hard? And Why Did Stalin Execute the Man Who Pioneered the Subject?: What is the hottest problem in fundamental physics today? Physics aficionados most probably would answer: quantum gravity. Of all the fundamental forces of nature, only gravity still stands outside the rubric of the quantum theory...; Gennady Gorelik

May 3, 2006The Sciences
Nobel Laureate Frank Wilczek and Betsy Devine.: In this episode, Nobel Prize winning physicist Frank Wilczek talks about his new book, Fantastic Realities, as well as his research and the current and future state of physics. His wife, Betsy Devine, talks about taking the phone call from Stockholm informing Professor Wilczek that he had been awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in physics...; Steve Mirsky

January 13, 2012
Magnetoastrocoolness: How Cosmic Magnetic Fields Shape Planetary Systems: AUSTIN, Texas—Astrophysicists have a funny attitude toward magnetic fields. You might say they feel both repelled and attracted. Gravitation is assumed to rule the cosmos, so models typically neglect magnetism, which for most researchers is just as well, because the theory of magnetism has a forbidding reputation...; George Musser

December 17, 2011
Does the "Goddamn" Higgs Particle Portend the End of Physics?: What does it say about particle physics that the Higgs boson has generated so much hullaballoo lately? Physicists at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland have reportedly glimpsed "tantalizing hints" of the Higgs, which might confer mass to quarks, electrons and other building blocks of our world...; John Horgan

September 1, 2015Space & Physics
What Einstein Got Wrong: Everyone makes mistakes. But those of the legendary physicist are particularly illuminating; Lawrence M. Krauss; Scientific American Volume 313, Issue 3; 10.1038/scientificamerican0915-50

September 1, 1992The Sciences
Gravity Quantized?: John Horgan; Scientific American Volume 267, Issue 3; 10.1038/scientificamerican0992-18

A Visual History of Science, from the Pages of Scientific American [Slide Show]
Streamers of Sparks from a 40-foot-tall Van de Graaff Generator, 1934: Nikola Tesla, the iconoclastic inventor and engineer, famous for his contributions to the field of electromagnetism, wrote the feature article accompanying this cover about the limitations on the much celebrated Van de Graaff generator...

July 2, 2008The Sciences
As LHC Draws Nigh, Nobelists Outline Dreams--And Nightmares: Run-up to activation of world's biggest science experiment later this summer; JR Minkel

October 1, 1998Space & Physics
String Instruments: String theory may soon be testable; George Musser; October 1998; 10.1038/scientificamerican1098-24b

June 1, 2015Space & Physics
Dark Matter Particles Interact with Themselves: This never-before-seen phenomenon could help explain what comprises dark matter; Clara Moskowitz; Scientific American Volume 312, Issue 6; 10.1038/scientificamerican0615-15; Originally published as "Dark Matter Drops a Clue" in Scientific American Volume 312, Issue 6

April 16, 2014Space & Physics
It’s the End of Fundamental Physics... Again: Fellow Scientific American blogger John Horgan is at it again. This time he is heralding the end of fundamental physics based on the increasing time lag between Nobel Prizes awarded for fundamental discoveries...; Ashutosh Jogalekar

September 9, 2014
New Bond Breaker Game Puts You in the Proton’s Seat: Admit it: haven’t you always longed to experience what it’s like to be a proton at the subatomic scale? No? Just Jen-Luc Piquant then.; Jennifer Ouellette

February 8, 2016The Sciences
Merging Black Holes: A Matter of Some Gravity: Two black holes merging can cast off a few percent of their total mass as gravitational waves in just minutes, sending the final object off on a high-speed journey through the universe...; Caleb A. Scharf

May 1, 2015Space & Physics
The Mysteries of the World's Tiniest Bits of Matter: Physicists have known for decades that particles called gluons keep protons and neutrons intact—and thereby hold the universe together. Yet the details of how gluons function remain surprisingly mysterious...; Rolf Ent, Thomas Ullrich and Raju Venugopalan; Scientific American Volume 312, Issue 5; 10.1038/scientificamerican0515-42; Originally published as "The Glue That Binds Us" in Scientific American Volume 312, Issue 5

June 1, 2019Space & Physics
The Experiment That Will Probe the Deepest Recesses of the Atom: Where do protons and neutrons get their mass and spin? Surprisingly, we don't know. A new facility promises to peek inside these particles to find answers; Abhay Deshpande and Rikutaro Yoshida; Scientific American Volume 320, Issue 6; 10.1038/scientificamerican0619-32; Originally published as "The Deepest Recesses of the Atom" in Scientific American Volume 320, Issue 6

December 12, 2011The Sciences
Waiting for the Higgs, With the Man Who Built the LHC: They call it “the machine.”Thousands of physicists working at the LHC are looking for the Higgs boson and other new particles, and many of them have contributed to building the gigantic detectors that are taking most of the media limelight these days.But humming 100 meters under the Franco-Swiss border is the apparatus that makes it all possible...; Davide Castelvecchi

Next Steps in the Higgs Boson Hunt