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Black holes are some of the most powerful objects in the universe — and humans could devise ways to harness that power as an energy source, a new theoretical study claims.

A s the mathematician De La Soul famously stated, three is the magic number. But if physicist Richard Feynman is to be believed, that figure is off by a factor of about 400. For Feynman, you see, the “magic number” is around 1/137 – specifically, it’s 1/137.03599913.

Physicists know it as α, or the fine structure constant. “It has been a mystery ever since it was discovered,” Feynman wrote in his 1985 book QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter. “All good theoretical physicists put this number up on their wall and worry about it.”

Continue reading “Unlocking The Mystery Of 137: Why This Number Is So Important” »

Two galaxies in the early universe, which contain extremely productive star factories, have been studied by a team of scientists led by Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. Using powerful telescopes to split the galaxies’ light into individual colours, the scientists were amazed to discover light from many different molecules – more than ever before at such distances. Studies like this could revolutionise our understanding of the lives of the most active galaxies when the universe was young, the researchers believe.

When the universe was young, galaxies were very different from today’s stately spirals, which are full of gently-shining suns and colourful gas clouds. New stars were being born, at rates hundreds of times faster than in today’s universe. Most of this however, was hidden behind thick layers of dust, making it a challenge for scientists to discover these star factories’ secrets – until now. By studying the most distant galaxies visible with powerful telescopes, astronomers can get glimpses of how these factories managed to create so many stars.

In a new study, published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, a team of scientists led by Chalmers astronomer Chentao Yang, used the telescopes of NOEMA (NOrthern Extended Millimetre Array) in France to find out more about how these early star factories managed to create so many stars. Yang and his colleagues measured light from two luminous galaxies in the early universe – one of them classified as a quasar, and both with high rates of star formation.

Gravity is the reason things with mass or energy are attracted to each other. It is why apples fall toward the ground and planets orbit stars.

Magnets attract some types of metals, but they can also push other magnets away. So how come you feel only the pull of gravity?

Continue reading “Einstein’s Insight: Why Does Gravity Pull Us Down and Not Up?” »

Physicists have proposed that a mirror universe alongside our own might explain dark matter – and we might be able to see traces of its stars.

By Jonathan O’Callaghan

Astrophysicists have discovered why spiral galaxies like the Milky Way are rare in the Supergalactic Plane, a dense region in our Local Universe. The research, led by Durham University and the University of Helsinki, used the SIBELIUS supercomputer simulation to show that galaxies in dense clusters on the Plane often merge, transforming spiral galaxies into elliptical ones. This finding, which aligns with telescope observations and supports the standard model of the Universe, helps explain a long-standing cosmic anomaly about galaxy distribution.

Astrophysicists say they have found an answer to why spiral galaxies like our own Milky Way are largely missing from a part of our Local Universe called the Supergalactic Plane.

The Supergalactic Plane is an enormous, flattened structure extending nearly a billion light years across in which our own Milky Way galaxy is embedded.

The world works at different levels — fundamental physics, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology — with each level having its own rules and regularities. Here’s the deep question: Ultimately, can what happens at a higher level be explained entirely in terms of what happens at a lower level? If the answer is ‘No’, if complete explanatory reduction fails, then what else could be going on?\
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Dr. Karl Friston, University College London, applies the free energy principle to set forth an account of life, or self-organization, in terms of active inference. August 19th, 2023.