If the prospect of an ever-expanding universe that eventually stretches into a vast emptiness isn’t depressing enough, there’s this: the universe may have cracks in it. Cracks, called cosmic strings, ...

One of the strangest ideas about the nature of the universe could be one of the most important. Do long, thin, and incredibly dense strands of matter called cosmic strings wind their way throughout ...

The LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA Collaboration, a large group of researchers at different institutes worldwide, has recently set the strongest constraints on cosmic strings to date, using the Advanced LIGO/Virgo ...

One of today’s outstanding cosmological questions is how structure first formed in the universe. Cosmic strings certainly could have done the job. A typical string postulated in grand unification ...

Remember that time in the Lord of the Rings lore when the dwarves of Moria dug too greedily and too deep, unearthing the Balrog, an ancient horror not meant to roam free in the modern age? Cosmic ...

Physicists in the US and Singapore are the first to use light from distant galaxies to perform a systematic search for cosmic strings — massive structures that may have been created just after the Big ...

Topology originated from the classification of geometric structures in mathematics, and have prevailed in a variety of branches of physics, ranging from the early electronic topological insulator to ...

In the dog days of summer, when a gush of hot air from a Fifth Avenue subway grate can feel as real as it gets, take heart that the downtown traffic nipping at your heels may just be part of a ...

The biggest lesson from Einstein's general theory of relativity is that space itself isn't a flat, unchanging, absolute entity. Rather it's woven together, along with time, into a single fabric: ...