Physics

In 2014, Nathan Seiberg, Charles Simonyi Professor in the School of Natural Sciences, "demonstrated that the most important symmetries of 20th-century physics could be extended more broadly to apply in quantum field theory, the basic theoretical framework in which physicists work today."

Four years ago, astronomers released the first ever image of a black hole. Now a subset of that team, led by IAS scholar Lia Medeiros, has used artificial intelligence to produce a vastly improved version of the image.

Eight scholars in the Schools of Mathematics and Natural Sciences are among the recipients of the 2023 Sloan Research Fellowships, a landmark honor for early-career scholars. 

"'Space-time is doomed,' says Nima Arkani-Hamed, a physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Arkani-Hamed has reached this conclusion over the past decade, as he's tried to gain a better understanding of what's happening inside the world's most powerful atom-smashers."

"The idea, put forth by Juan Maldacena of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., hinted at something profound: that our universe could be a hologram. Much like a 3-D hologram emerges from the information encoded on a 2-D surface, our universe’s 4-D spacetime could be a holographic projection of a lower-dimensional reality."

"Physicists have purportedly created the first-ever wormhole, a kind of tunnel theorized in 1935 by Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen that leads from one place to another by passing into an extra dimension of space."

Rashid Sunyaev, Distinguished Visiting Professor in the School of Natural Sciences, has been awarded the Max Planck Medal, the highest prize in theoretical physics granted by the German Physical Society (DPG), in recognition of “numerous and...

The Institute for Advanced Study extends well wishes to former Mathematics/Natural Sciences Faculty member Chen Ning Yang on his 100th birthday. During Yang’s time at IAS, he and his collaborator, fellow Faculty member Tsung Dao Lee, were awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics. He has a left tremendous legacy in our community today.

"The Arts and Sciences used to share much of the same intellectual space. Only recently have they diverged to the degree that they seem diametrically opposed. The Exchange is our attempt to rekindle some of the dialogue that occurred between the two fields."

Research from IAS scholars, past and present, features prominently in the September 2022 issue of Scientific American. Past Director’s Visitor George Musser takes account of the recent groundbreaking work being done on the infamous black hole information paradox by researchers including Member Ahmed Almheiri, who authors his own essay on the solution to the paradox.