general relativity

Everyone knows what time is. We can practically feel it ticking away, marching on in the same direction with horrifying regularity. Time has enslaved the Western world and become our most precious commodity. Turn it over to the physicists however, and it begins to morph, twist and even crumble away. So what is time exactly?

This podcast featuring Paul Davies, a theoretical physicist and cosmologist at Arizona State University and Director of BEYOND: Centre for Fundamental Concepts in Science, explores this difficult question and accompanies our What is time article.

We may be a little closer to a direct detection of dark energy thanks to a new result that came about, in a sense, by accident.

A possible way of resolving the greatest problem of physics.

As we are well over half way through advent, we thought today we'd look towards the future of the Universe

On the ninth day of advent we find out about the maths of black holes.

Behind door #8 we answer all the questions you've ever wanted to ask about the physical reality of black holes!

On the seventh day of advent we venture to a dark place we will never return from

On the fifth day of advent we learn about the heroic effort that led to the detection of gravitational waves and the excitement of their discovery.

On the fourth day of advent, we remember one of our most exciting cosmological events, watching the announcement of the detection of gravitational waves in 2016.

  • Want facts and want them fast? Our Maths in a minute series explores key mathematical concepts in just a few words.

  • What do chocolate and mayonnaise have in common? It's maths! Find out how in this podcast featuring engineer Valerie Pinfield.

  • Is it possible to write unique music with the limited quantity of notes and chords available? We ask musician Oli Freke!

  • How can maths help to understand the Southern Ocean, a vital component of the Earth's climate system?

  • Was the mathematical modelling projecting the course of the pandemic too pessimistic, or were the projections justified? Matt Keeling tells our colleagues from SBIDER about the COVID models that fed into public policy.

  • PhD student Daniel Kreuter tells us about his work on the BloodCounts! project, which uses maths to make optimal use of the billions of blood tests performed every year around the globe.