Every time I write about particle physics, I encounter a moment of uncertainty about a quantity that, at first glance, ought to be clear. How many kinds of elementary particles should I say there are?

Physicists know that their elegant theoretical description of forces and particles — the standard model of particle physics — must be incomplete, because there are a host of phenomena it cannot ...

Stardust Solutions says its tiny spheres can reflect the sun’s rays without harming people or the environment. Critics say private companies have no business altering Earth’s atmosphere. An enclosed ...

Physicists know that their elegant theoretical description of forces and particles — the standard model of particle physics — must be incomplete, because there are a host of phenomena it cannot ...

When you drill down into the very fabric of reality—where elementary particles make up the matter that is you and me and everything around us in three-dimensional space—things get divided nicely into ...

Scientists discovered “magic” top quarks at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, demonstrating how the facility has evolved to support quantum computing research. Researchers at ATLAS observed ...

Quantum physics paints a strange picture of the world, one filled with spooky connections, unsettling uncertainties and—perhaps oddest of all—particles that spontaneously spring into being from the ...

Physicists have long relied on the idea that electrons behave like tiny particles zipping through materials, even though quantum physics says their exact position is fundamentally uncertain. Now, ...

Drinking water in plastic bottles contains countless particles too small to see. New research finds that people who drink water from them on a daily basis ingest far more microplastics than those who ...

A clever mathematical tool known as virtual particles unlocks the strange and mysterious inner workings of subatomic particles. What happens to these particles within atoms would stay unexplained ...