dark energy – Spooky Action at a Distance

The atoms of space may be tiny, but could have huge effects.

If spacetime is made of atoms, as many theoretical physicists these days speculate, could we ever know? You might doubt it. Conventional wisdom says those atoms would be too small, too energetic, or just plain too weird. But Daniele Oriti thinks we have a shot. Oriti, an Italian theorist working at the Max Planck Institute […]

An Interview with Thanu Padmanabhan [Video]

“Atoms” of space are too small to see, but betray themselves indirectly.

I’m fascinated by how the humblest observations can lead you to the profoundest conclusions, and here’s one I learned from Thanu Padmanabhan, an eminent theoretical physicist at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Pune, India. Suppose you cup your hands around a glass of cold water to warm it up. From this simple […]

Is Dark Matter a Glimpse of a Deeper Level of Reality?

Many theoretical physicists speculate that space and time arise from deeper physics. Erik Verlinde goes them one further.

SANTA BARBARA—Two years ago several of my Sci Am colleagues and I had an intense email exchange over a period of weeks, trying to figure out what to make of a new paper by string theorist Erik Verlinde. I don’t think I’ve ever been so flummoxed by physicists’ reactions to a paper. Mathematically it could […]

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The atoms of space may be tiny, but could have huge effects.

“Atoms” of space are too small to see, but betray themselves indirectly.

Many theoretical physicists speculate that space and time arise from deeper physics. Erik Verlinde goes them one further.