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 ...

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 ...

The universe began with a bang—an explosion so intense, it forged the fabric of space and time itself. This pivotal moment, known as the Big Bang, marked the birth of everything we see, know, and are.

Cosmic strings are hypothetical topological defects, often described as “cracks” in the universe, that theoretically formed during the quantum chaos immediately following the Big Bang. Although the ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...