2020s Biggest Breakthroughs in Physics

This year, two teams of physicists made profound progress on ideas that could bring about the next revolution in physics. Another still has identified the source of a longstanding cosmic mystery. 1. Heres an extremely brief version of the black hole information paradox: Stuff falls into a black hole. Over time a long, long time the black hole evaporates. What happened to the stuff According to the rules of gravity, its gone, its information lost forever. But according to the rules of quantum mechanics, information can never be lost. Therefore, paradox. This year, a series of tour de force calculations has shown that information must somehow escape even if how it does so remains a mystery. 2. Levitating trains, lossless power transmission, perfect energy storage: The promise of roomtemperature superconductivity has fed many a utopian dream. A team based at the University of Rochester in New York reported that they had created a material based on a lattice of hydrogen atoms that showed evidence o