Lifeboat Foundation

Yesterday (Sep 5, 2019), the Breakthrough Prize Foundation awarded $21.6 million US dollars to the scientists behind a stunning achievement. They imaged a black hole. Although the image was announced and released 5 months ago, the story is still unfolding.

Yesterday (Sep 5, 2019), the Breakthrough Prize Foundation awarded $21.6 million US dollars to the scientists behind a stunning achievement. They imaged a black hole. Although the image was announced and released 5 months ago, the story is still unfolding.

The Breakthrough Prize is funded by Russian-Israeli billionaire Yuri Milner. It is the highest-paying science prize for researchers in life science, math, and physics.

There are many black holes in our galaxy and some small ones in our own galactic “neighborhood” . Yet the EHT team* focused on M87, a black hole in the center of another Galaxy, 55 million light years from our solar system.

Continue reading “Stunning 1st image of Black Hole” »

CERN has revealed plans for a gigantic successor of the giant atom smasher LHC, the biggest machine ever built. Particle physicists will never stop to ask for ever larger big bang machines. But where are the limits for the ordinary society concerning costs and existential risks?

CERN boffins are already conducting a mega experiment at the LHC, a 27km circular particle collider, at the cost of several billion Euros to study conditions of matter as it existed fractions of a second after the big bang and to find the smallest particle possible – but the question is how could they ever know? Now, they pretend to be a little bit upset because they could not find any particles beyond the standard model, which means something they would not expect. To achieve that, particle physicists would like to build an even larger “Future Circular Collider” (FCC) near Geneva, where CERN enjoys extraterritorial status, with a ring of 100km – for about 24 billion Euros.

Experts point out that this research could be as limitless as the universe itself. The UK’s former Chief Scientific Advisor, Prof Sir David King told BBC: “We have to draw a line somewhere otherwise we end up with a collider that is so large that it goes around the equator. And if it doesn’t end there perhaps there will be a request for one that goes to the Moon and back.”

“There is always going to be more deep physics to be conducted with larger and larger colliders. My question is to what extent will the knowledge that we already have be extended to benefit humanity?”

Continue reading “Why it is dangerous to build ever larger big bang machines” »

“The Future: A Very Short Introduction” (OUP, 2017) by Dr. Jennifer M Gidley.

Oxford University Press has just released a wonderful little animation video centring on my book “The Future: A Very Short Introduction” published in 2017. In an entertaining way it shows how the concept of the future or futures is central to so many other concepts — many of which are the subject of other OUP Very Short Introductions. The VSI Series now has well over 500 titles, with ‘The Future’ being number 516.

To watch the video click here.

Continue reading “An Introduction to the Future with Oxford VSI” »

Ironically, my more popular posts are ones furthest from my passion and core interests. They are larks—never intended to go viral. This is about one of them…

Apart from family, I typically steer clear of religious topics. I identify with a mainstream religion, but it is completely beside the purpose of Lifeboat Foundation, and it is a personal affair.^[1]

Yet, here we discuss a religious topic, after all. Let’s get started…

Question

Continue reading “Does Mystery of Quantum Physics Prove God Exists?” »

Do you remember all the hoopla last year when the Higgs Boson was confirmed by physicists at the Large Hadron Collider? That’s the one called the ‘God particle’, because it was touted as helping to resolve the forces of nature into one elegant theory. Well—Not so fast, bucko!…

First, some credit where credit is due: The LHC is a 27-kilometer ring of superconducting magnets interspersed by accelerators that boost the energy of the particles as they whip around and smash into each other. For physicists—and anyone who seeks a deeper understanding of what goes into everything—it certainly inspires awe.

Existence of the Higgs Boson (aka, The God Particle) was predicted. Physicists were fairly certain that it would be observed. But its discovery is a ‘worst case’ scenario for the Standard Model of particle physics. It points to shortcomings in our ability to model and predict things. Chemists have long had a master blueprint of atoms in the Periodic Table. It charts all the elements in their basic states. But, physicists are a long way from building something analogous. That’s because we know a lot more about atomic elements than the fundamental building blocks of matter and energy. _{[continue below image]}

Continue reading “Fundamental Particles & Forces: What do we know?” »

A Primer for Deterministic Thermodynamics and Cryodynamics

Dedicated to the Founder of Synergetics, Hermann Haken

Otto E. Rossler, Frank Kuske, Dieter Fröhlich, Hans H. Diebner, Thimo Bo¨ hl, Demetris T. Christopoulos, Christophe Letellier

Abstract The basic laws of deterministic many-body systems are summarized in the footsteps of the deterministic approach pioneered by Yakov Sinai. Two fundamental cases, repulsive and attractive, are distinguished. To facilitate comparison, long-range potentials are assumed both in the repulsive case and in the new attractive case. In Part I, thermodynamics – including the thermodynamics of irreversible processes along with chemical and biological evolution – is presented without paying special attention to the ad hoc constraint of long-range repulsion. In Part II, the recently established new fundamental discipline of cryodynamics, based on long-range attraction, is described in a parallel format. In Part III finally, the combination (“dilute hot-plasma dynamics”) is described as a composite third sister discipline with its still largely unknown properties. The latter include the prediction of a paradoxical “double-temperature equilibrium” or at least quasi-equilibrium existing which has a promising technological application in the proposed interactive local control of hot-plasma fusion reactors. The discussion section puts everything into a larger perspective which even touches on cosmology.
Keywords: Sinai gas, chaos theory, heat death, dissipative structures, second arrow, Point Omega, Super Life, paradoxical cooling, antifriction, paradoxical acceleration, Sonnleitner numerical instability, dilute-plasma paradigm, two-temperature equilibrium, ITER, MHD, interactive plasma cooling, McGuire reactor, Hubble law, Zwicky rehabilitated, Perlmutter-Schmidt-Riess wiggle, mean cosmic temperature, van Helmont, Lavoisier, Kant, Poincaré, double-faced Sonnleitner map. (August 26, 2016)

Continue reading “A Primer for Deterministic Thermodynamics and Cryodynamics” »

In one of my first articles for Lifeboat,* I provided an experimental methodology for demonstrating (or proving) the instantaneous ‘communication’ between quantum entangled particles. Even though changes to one particle can be provably demonstrated at its far away twin, the very strange experimental results suggested by quantum theory also demonstrate that you cannot use the simultaneity for any purpose. That is, you can provably pass information instantly, but you cannot study the ‘message’ (a change in state at the recipient), until such time as it could have been transmit by a classical radio wave.

Now, scientists have conducted an experiment proving that objects can instantaneously affect each other, regardless o the distance between them. [continue below]

[From The New York Times—Oct 21, 2015]:

Sorry Einstein.
Quantum Study Suggests ‘Spooky Action’ is Real

Continue reading “Quantum Theory: ‘Spooky Action at a Distance’ confirmed” »

“In its inaugural year of observations, the Dark Energy Survey has already turned up at least eight objects that look to be new satellite dwarf galaxies of the Milky Way.”

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