The 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to David J. Thouless, Duncan Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz for “theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter.” Their work represents a set of mathematical insights about exotic phases of matter like superfluids and superconductors, but it …
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Type Ia supernovae are affectionately called “standard candles” in astronomy. They’re blessedly predictable, so we use them to measure distances. The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics went to three astronomers who used standard candles to reach the same conclusion based on the same data: namely, that the universe is expanding …
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Ever since the historic discovery of gravitational waves by the Laser Interferometry Gravitational wave Observatory (LIGO), scientists have been trying to amend and refine that data. The original idea was that the first confirmed detection of gravitational waves was the result of a binary black hole event: two black holes …
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