How best to study the universe’s matter and energy? That question has long divided the world’s physicists.<\/p>\n
Theoretical physicists devise mathematical models to explain the complex interactions between matter and energy, while experimental physicists conduct tests on specific physical phenomena, using advanced tools from lasers to particle accelerators and telescopes, to arrive at answers.<\/p>\n
There’s something of a rivalry between the two approaches, famously spoofed in an episode of the CBS hit comedy The Big Bang Theory<\/em>. Renowned theoretical physicists Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and Stephen Hawking are famous for developing theories about how the universe works.<\/p>\n Experimentalists, on the other hand, are responsible for designing experiments using observation to either prove or disprove theories. Think of billion-dollar headline-making science experiments like CERN in Switzerland, or LIGO, which in 2016 made possible the first observation of gravitational waves that Einstein’s general theory of relativity predicted nearly 100 years before, but had never been observed.<\/p>\n What’s behind the rivalry and how do scientists from both sides of the fields approach their work? Here, two physicists explain:<\/p>\n