Physicists stirred up controversy with scientific cooking tips in 2025 | New Scientist
A smooth cacio e pepe pasta sauce can be hard to achieve Brent Hofacker/Alamy
Scientists’ new recipes for a classic pasta dish and boiled eggs were among the most talked-about science stories of 2025, provoking delight and fury in equal measure.
A controversial experiment threatened to kill the multiverse in 2025 | New Scientist
The multiverse was proposed as a way to make sense of bizarre quantum behaviour VICTOR de SCHWANBERG/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
A physics experiment published this year that claimed to measure a single photon in two places at once – and, in the process, discredit the idea of a multiverse – drew pushback from many sceptical physicists, but the scientists behind the demonstration stand by their claim.
Inside world's ultimate X-ray machine before it becomes more powerful | New Scientist
An illustration of an electron beam traveling through a niobium cavity, a key component of SLAC’s LCLS-II X-ray laser
Physicists used 'dark photons' in an effort to rewrite physics in 2025 | New Scientist
Dark photons offer a new explanation for the double-slit experiment RUSSELL KIGHTLEY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
A core tenet of quantum theory was imperilled this year when a team of researchers put forward a radical new interpretation of an experiment about the nature of light.
Qubits break quantum limit to encode information for longer | New Scientist
Quantum particles can now be made to carry useful information for longer koto_feja/Getty Images
The odd phenomenon of quantum superposition has helped researchers break a fundamental quantum mechanical limit – and given quantum objects properties that make them useful for quantum computing for longer periods of time.
How 3 imaginary physics demons tore up the laws of nature | New Scientist
There is a long history of doing physics by imagination. Albert Einstein built his special theory of relativity after imagining himself chasing a beam of light. Erwin Schrödinger gave us a cat that was both alive and dead. The German mathematician David Hilbert demonstrated the counterintuitiveness of infinity by imagining a hotel with an infinite number of rooms and guests. By taking creative liberties, physicists use thought experiments to stress-test ideas and so better understand them.
Inside the wild experiments physicists would do with zero limits | New Scientist
Are we living in a simulation? This experiment could tell us | New Scientist
Thomas Anderson – otherwise known as Neo – is walking up a flight of stairs when he sees a black cat shake itself and walk past a doorway. Then the moment seems to replay before his eyes. Just a touch of déjà vu, he thinks. But no, his companions insist: he is living inside a computer program and he has just witnessed a glitch.
Quantum experiment finally settles a century-old row between Einstein and Bohr | New Scientist
The double-slit experiment demonstrates the quantum nature of reality RUSSELL KIGHTLEY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
A thought experiment that was at the heart of an argument between famed physicists Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr in 1927 has finally been made real. Its findings elucidate one of the core mysteries of quantum physics: is light really a wave, a particle or a complex mixture of the two?
Why quantum mechanics says the past isn’t real | New Scientist
An Einstein ring known as the blue horseshoe, an effect seen due to gravitational lensing of a distant galaxy NASA, ESA
The following is an extract from our Lost in Space-Time newsletter. Each month, we dive into fascinating ideas from around the universe. You can sign up for Lost in Space-Time here.