George F. Smoot, Who Showed How the Cosmos Began, Is Dead at 80

He led a team of scientists who helped confirm that a Big Bang was the source of the universe. The discovery earned him a Nobel Prize.

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Chen Ning Yang, Nobel-Winning Physicist, Is Dead at 103

He and a colleague, Tsung-Dao Lee, created a sensation in 1956 by proposing that one of the four forces of nature might violate a law of physics.

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Nobel Prizes This Year Offer Three Cheers for Slow Science

The scientific Nobels announced this week — in Physiology or Medicine, Physics and Chemistry — honored achievements rooted in fundamental research from decades ago.

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Nobel Prize in Physics Is Awarded for Work in Quantum Mechanics

The prize was awarded to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis.

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Now Arriving, a New Theory of In-Flight Turbulence

Physicists have devised a new model to account for the discomfort that airline passengers know all too well.

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Happy 10th Birthday to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. Now Drop Dead.

Ten years ago, astronomers made an epic discovery with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. Cosmology hasn’t been the same since, and it might not stay that way much longer.

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Rainer Weiss, Who Gave a Nod to Einstein and the Big Bang, Dies at 92

He shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on gravitational waves, which helped confirm Einstein’s general theory of relativity and how the universe began.

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Earth Is Spinning Faster, Making Some Summer Days Shorter

The planet’s rotation fluctuates as it travels around the sun, and measurements suggest we’re losing more than a millisecond during the long days of summer.

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Ivar Giaever, Nobel Winner in Quantum Physics, Dies at 96

A former “D” student from Norway, he made his mark at G.E.’s Research Lab in the U.S., in part by confirming a pivotal theory about superconductivity.

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Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist Is Stripped of Dutch Citizenship

Thirteen years ago, Andre Geim took British citizenship to accept a knighthood. He has just learned he can no longer be a citizen of the Netherlands as a result.

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