As the 19th century came to a close, physicists were feeling pretty satisfied with the state of their science. The great edifice of physical theory seemed complete. A few minor experiments remained to ...

One of the most important science experiments of all time was a complete and utter failure. In 1887, Albert Michelson and Edward Morley set up their project in the dormitory basement at a university ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. The Universe is out there, waiting for you to discover it. In science, we don't simply perform experiments willy-nilly. We don't ...

In the late 1800s, no one knew what light was. Everyone knew it behaved like a wave some of the time, but all waves need to travel through some propagation medium. This propagation medium was called ...

Yesterday a gentleman posted a comment on an article I wrote about the luminiferous aether. For those who aren't familiar, the aether was an idea proposed in the 1800s to explain how light can travel ...

This is an easier one than dark matter vs. modified gravity. As mentioned, I'm going to be on Science Friday today, and they asked me to contribute a guest blog post, which I'm cross-posting below.

“…upon this simple system of many colors is based the manifold and infinitely varied investigation of all things.” —Zosimos of Panopolis (ca. 250 CE ...

James is a published author with multiple pop-history and science books to his name. He specializes in history, space, strange science, and anything out of the ordinary.View full profile James is a ...

Using my recent interview on To The Best Of Our Knowledge about the Krauss and the "Universe From Nothing" controversy as a pretext, I thought it would be a good idea to write a bit about what physics ...

(via PBS Space Time) As the 19th century came to a close, physicists were feeling pretty satisfied with the state of their science. The great edifice of physical theory seemed complete. A few minor ...