As the 19th century came to a close, physicists were feeling pretty satisfied with the state of their science. The great edifice of physical theory seemed complete. A few minor experiments remained to ...

In the late 1800s, no one knew what light was. Everyone knew it behaved like a wave some of the time, but all waves need to travel through some propagation medium. This propagation medium was called ...

Using my recent interview on To The Best Of Our Knowledge about the Krauss and the "Universe From Nothing" controversy as a pretext, I thought it would be a good idea to write a bit about what physics ...

“…upon this simple system of many colors is based the manifold and infinitely varied investigation of all things.” —Zosimos of Panopolis (ca. 250 CE ...

Brendan Foster describes renewed interest in the luminiferous aether (2 November, p 32). For all its shortcomings, the aether was one of the most productive scientific ideas of all time. Many ...

LIGO announced today that they have detected gravitational waves from a black hole merger. If verified it will be the ultimate confirmation of Einstein's theory of general relativity. But what are ...

(via PBS Space Time) As the 19th century came to a close, physicists were feeling pretty satisfied with the state of their science. The great edifice of physical theory seemed complete. A few minor ...