Physics

When he was 19, Mark Everett’s father died. But his big idea, a surprising interpretation of quantum mechanics, lived on. And if that idea is right, he might still be alive … somewhere.

Astrophysicist Janna Levin explains why it took scientists 100 years to confirm one of Einstein’s most outlandish predictions: gravitational waves.

The theory of relativity made Albert Einstein a household name. But coming up with the discovery was anything but elementary.

When he was 19, Mark Everett’s father died. But his big idea, a surprising interpretation of quantum mechanics, lived on. And if that idea is right, he might still be alive … somewhere.

Around 130 million years ago, two neutron stars — those strange, compacted cores of dead stars — collided. Scientists recently detected the signals from that collision, in the form of gravitational waves and electromagnetic signals.