Most explanations rely on "dark energy" to explain the Universe's accelerating expansion rate, but a new study takes a different path.

The Universe is expanding, and goes on for farther than even our most powerful telescopes can see. The part of it that we can see, scientists have long concluded, is indistinguishable from being ...

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. An illustration of a black hole accretion disk glowing with radiation. New research suggests that ...

Most people think of space as a flat sheet: You travel in one direction, and you end up far from your starting point. But a new paper suggests that the universe may in fact be spherical: If you travel ...

No matter how elegant your theory is, experimental data will have the last word. Observations of the retrograde motion of the planets were fundamental to the Copernican revolution, in which the sun ...

I’ve been a Scientific American subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, ...

When you look at your surrounding environment, it might seem like you’re living on a flat plane. After all, this is why you can navigate a new city using a map: a flat piece of paper that represents ...

Mathematics and physics share a close, reciprocal relationship. Mathematics offers the language and tools to describe physical phenomena, while physics drives the development of new mathematical ideas ...

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(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) John Etnyre, Georgia Institute of Technology (THE CONVERSATION) When you look at your ...