CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Ancient light absorbed by neutral hydrogen atoms could be used to test certain predictions of string theory, say cosmologists at the University of Illinois. Making the measurements, ...

A decades-old idea is quietly regaining attention in theoretical physics: ancient structures embedded in the universe’s fabric could reshape current understanding of time. Long dismissed as fringe ...

According to big bang theory, for the first 10 - 43 seconds of the universe's life, all the forces of nature existed as one superforce. The universe was all energy, no matter. Physicists call this ...

Scientists seeking the secrets of the universe would like to make a model that shows how all of nature’s forces and particles fit together. It would be nice to do it with Legos. But perhaps a better ...

A strange cosmic object described by string theory could be mistaken for an ordinary black hole from far away. If these objects do exist, they could solve a long-standing paradox about black holes.

At a 1990 conference on cosmology, I asked attendees, who included folks like Stephen Hawking, Michael Turner, James Peebles, Alan Guth and Andrei Linde, to nominate the smartest living physicist.