Black holes are intriguing astronomical objects that have a gravitational pull so strong that it prevents any object and even light from escaping. While black holes have been the topic of numerous astrophysical studies, their origins and underlying physics remain largely a mystery.
The NA64 experiment started operations at CERN’s SPS North Area in 2016. Its aim is to search for unknown particles from a hypothetical “dark sector.” For these searches, NA64 directs an electron beam onto a fixed target. Researchers then look for unknown dark sector particles produced by collisions between the beam’s electrons and the target’s atomic nuclei.
Apologies for the (hopefully now somewhat less) clickbait-y title. Now, of course, I know that the Big Bang did not happen at any point connected to a single point in our current $3$-dimensional observable universe by a one-dimensional causal curve. I also know that at any point in the universe, all other points seem to be moving away from that point. However, according to our current understanding of physics, the universe is (at least) $4$-dimensional. Just like how in the classical “balloon” analogy for an expanding universe, the points do in fact all move away from a common point on the interior of the balloon, all spacetime points do move away from the Big Bang, or at least some kind of cosmological horizon which surrounds it — this is how I understand going forward in time, at least. Does it make sense to think of this as a sort of “center” for the full, $4$-dimensional spacetime? Or are there further subtleties to this situation?
Black hole singularities defy the laws of physics. New research presents a bold solution to this puzzle: Black holes may actually be a theoretical type of star called a ‘gravastar,’ filled with universe-expanding dark energy.
Leftover light from the young universe has a major flaw, and we don’t know how to fix it. It’s the cold spot. It’s just way too big and way too cold. Astronomers aren’t sure what it is, but they mostly agree that it’s worth investigating.
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) was generated when our universe was only 380,000 years old. At the time, our cosmos was about a million times smaller than it is today and had a temperature of over 10,000 kelvins (17,500 degrees Fahrenheit, or 9,700 degrees Celsius), meaning all of the gas was plasma. As the universe expanded, it cooled, and the plasma became neutral. In the process, it released a flood of white-hot light. Over the billions of years since, that light has cooled and stretched to a temperature of around 3 kelvins (minus 454 F, or minus 270 C), putting that radiation firmly in the microwave band of the electromagnetic spectrum.
To be clear, humans are not the pinnacle of evolution. We are confronted with difficult choices and cannot sustain our current trajectory. No rational person can expect the human population to continue its parabolic growth of the last 200 years, along with an ever-increasing rate of natural resource extraction. This is socio-economically unsustainable. While space colonization might offer temporary relief, it won’t resolve the underlying issues. If we are to preserve our blue planet and ensure the survival and flourishing of our human-machine civilization, humans must merge with synthetic intelligence, transcend our biological limitations, and eventually evolve into superintelligent beings, independent of material substrates—advanced informational beings, or ‘infomorphs.’ In time, we will shed the human condition and upload humanity into a meticulously engineered inner cosmos of our own creation.
Much like the origin of the Universe, the nature of consciousness may appear to be a philosophical enigma that remains perpetually elusive within the current scientific paradigm. However, I emphasize the term “current.” These issues are not beyond the reach of alternative investigative methods, ones that the next scientific paradigm will inevitably incorporate with the arrival of Artificial Superintelligence.
The era of traditional, human-centric theoretical modeling and problem-solving—developing hypotheses, uncovering principles, and validating them through deduction, logic, and repeatable experimentation—may be nearing the end. A confluence of factors—Big Data, algorithms, and computational resources—are steering us towards a new type of discovery, one that transcends the limitations of human-like logic and decision-making— the one driven solely by AI superintelligence, nestled in quantum neo-empiricism and a fluidity of solutions. These novel scientific methodologies may encompass, but are not limited to, computing supercomplex abstractions, creating simulated realities, and manipulating matter-energy and the space-time continuum itself.
In this episode, we’ve embarked on an exciting journey into the heart of quantum cosmology, exploring Stephen Hawking’s revolutionary \.
For the first time, scientists have seen the small ripples that result from black holes’ motion, which are gently stretching and squeezing everything in the universe.
They revealed that they could “hear” low-frequency gravitational waves, which are produced by massive objects colliding and moving around in space and causing changes in the universe’s fabric.
Life is shaped by choices. The fundamental debate is whether to live life for learning or for pleasure. This weekend, my existential tension boiled down to a simple question: why am I writing my next book and my next scientific paper rather than having fun in the sun?
After some contemplation, I came up with the realization that learning is pleasure. But there is another benefit to writing. Most people will live in the future and I wish to communicate my thoughts to those who will be born long after I am gone. I weigh my priorities in life based on the number of people who might benefit from my actions.
There are currently 8.1 billion people on Earth, about 7% of the total number of humans who have ever lived since the Big Bang, 117 billion. Based on the star count from the Gaia sky survey, the number of stars in the Milky-Way galaxy is comparable to this total value within a factor of a few. This implies that for the foreseeable future, Milky-Way stars could be named after each person who ever lived on Earth.
The first anomaly concerns the speed at which the Universe is expanding. Astronomers determine this in two ways and herein lies the problem: the two methods yield different values.
The obvious method is to observe galaxies (the basic building blocks of the Universe) in the nearby Universe and measure how fast they’re moving away from us. They’re scattering like pieces of cosmic shrapnel in the aftermath of the Big Bang, the titanic explosion in which the Universe was born 13.82 billion years ago.
