Physics is way beyond me, though I wish it wasn’t. I reach my brain’s limit so fast that I sometimes feel it’s oozing out of my ears. But I still love reading about it—and this article is a treat.
It profiles American astrophysicist Adam Riess, who won the 2011 Nobel Prize for discovering the accelerating expansion of the universe. Now he thinks he might have been wrong.
Ross Andersen’s piece is deeply personal and surprisingly accessible, capturing the essence of scientific humility and curiosity.
Riess’s genius lies in making precise observations, but the task of explaining the accelerating expansion that he discovered fell to theorists. They proposed the existence of dark energy: a faint, repulsive force that pervades all of empty space.