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Imaginary numbers have a chequered history, and a sparse — if devoted — following. Abigail Klopper looks at why a concept as beautiful as i gets such a bad rap.
The way that we understand free space has varied wildly since our first conception of the vacuum. And how we measure the void has proven just as changeable, as Karl Jousten explains.
Three years have passed since the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, yet the country struggles to agree on a way forward. The uncertainty this creates is being felt across its research community.
Einstein’s general theory of relativity is one of the most important accomplishments in the history of science. We reassess the importance of one of the expeditions that made its experimental verification possible — a story that involves a sense of adventure and scientific ingenuity in equal measure.
Bill Phillips celebrates a beautiful reformation of the metric system, by which scientists measure the physical world, coming into effect on World Metrology Day, 20 May 2019.
General relativity was first experimentally verified in 1919. On the centennial of this occasion, we celebrate the scientific progress fuelled by subsequent efforts at verifying its predictions, from time dilation to the observation of the shadow of a black hole.
