Tag Archives: explanation

This universal principle created all space and matter from the beginning of time. Today, it’s still creating strange phenomena around the world.

Emergence is the source of all the laws of physics. Strange spots called fairy circles illustrate the way emergence brings new fundamental properties into the world, including space and matter. There are millions of them. Bare patches in grasslands, remarkably well-defined, regular in shape and spacing, and ordered in a roughly-hexagonal array over long distances, […]

Twist and Shout: Topology In Action

As Chubby Checker sang and showed a 1960s generation, “Let’s do the twist.” Twist is not only an important thing. It is the only thing. Look around; all that you can see is made of twist. How so? The explanation starts with atoms and takes us through topology and Solitaire to the final fate of […]

The Massive Question The Higgs Boson Has No Answer

What is mass? An apple has it. Put one on a supermarket scale: Earth’s gravity guarantees you pay in precise proportion. In 1684 Isaac Newton does the math for mass and gravity. In 1915 Albert Einstein cleans it up. But a deep problem remains untouched: Up close and personal, neither Isaac nor Albert nor anyone […]

Could the Universe Have Only Two Dimensions?

It’s strange but true: Physics is now studying the universe as if it is a two-dimensional hologram. How did this come to be? And what does it mean? The 3D/2D duality is known as the holographic principle. Two decades ago American theoretical physicist Leonard Susskind described it this way: ‘In a certain sense the world […]