One of the most basic assumptions of fundamental physics is that the different properties of mass—weight, inertia and gravitation—always remain the same in relation to each other. Without this ...
When an object moves extremely fast—close to the speed of light—certain basic assumptions that we take for granted no longer apply. This is the central consequence of Albert Einstein's special theory ...
Monisha Ravisetti was a science writer at CNET. She covered climate change, space rockets, mathematical puzzles, dinosaur bones, black holes, supernovas, and sometimes, the drama of philosophical ...
There’s an adage coined by [Ian Betteridge] that any headline ending in a question mark can be answered by the word “No”. However, Lorentz invariance – the theory that the same rules of physics apply ...
In Newtonian physics, space and time had their independent identities, and nobody ever got them mixed up. It was with the theory of relativity, put together in the early 20th century, that talking ...
A century ago, Albert Einstein became famous. Sure, he was already well-known among physicists. But the world at large learned his name only after November 1919, when news broke that his theory of ...
Einstein’s special relativity, which he formulated in his “miracle year” of 1905, was a theory that revolutionised our ideas of space and time – and ultimately paved the way for some even bigger ...
Einstein’s theory of gravity — general relativity — has been very successful for more than a century. However, it has theoretical shortcomings. This is not surprising: the theory predicts its own ...
This one involved the Milky Way's supermassive black hole. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. By analyzing the extraordinarily ...
Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: String theory attempts to unify general relativity and quantum theory. Popular in the 1990s, string theory fell out of favor as it failed to provide ...