Posted in cosmology, quantum physics, robotics/AI
I recently read an interesting book on reality, entitled The Fabric of Reality. In the book, David Deutsch constructs a unified theory of reality by combining four fundamental theories: 1. Quantum mechanics (multiverse interpretation). 2. Turing principle of computers and artificial intelligence. 3. Popperian epistemology. 4. Darwinian evolution. Deutsch says: In all cases the theory […].
First evidence of magnetic fields in the Universe’s galactic web.
The cosmic web is the name astronomers give to the structure of our Universe. It refers to the clusters, filaments, dark matter, and voids that make up the basis of this ever-expanding Universe. We can observe this via optical telescopes by mapping the locations of galaxies.
In a new research published in Science Advances, for the first time, scientists claim to have observed shockwaves moving through these galaxy clusters and filaments that make up the galactic or cosmic web. A phenomenon that has long been a universal mystery.
The field equations of Einstein’s General Relativity theory say that faster-than-light (FTL) travel is possible, so a handful of researchers are working to see whether a Star Trek-style warp drive, or perhaps a kind of artificial wormhole, could be created through our technology.
But even if shown feasible tomorrow, it’s possible that designs for an FTL system could be as far ahead of a functional starship as Leonardo da Vinci’s 16th century drawings of flying machines were ahead of the Wright Flyer of 1903. But this need not be a showstopper against human interstellar flight in the next century or two. Short of FTL travel, there are technologies in the works that could enable human expeditions to planets orbiting some of the nearest stars.
Certainly, feasibility of such missions will depend on geopolitical-economic factors. But it also will depend on the distance to nearest Earth-like exoplanet. Located roughly 4.37 light years away, Alpha Centauri is the Sun’s closest neighbor; thus science fiction, including Star Trek, has envisioned it as humanity’s first interstellar destination.
Sir Fred Hoyle was an English astronomer who formulated the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis. He also held controversial stances on other scientific matters — in particular his rejection of the “Big Bang” theory, a term coined by him on BBC radio, and his promotion of panspermia and the Steady-state theory of the universe.
Over time, clumps of dark matter began to gravitationally pull in regular matter, forming recognizable structures, such as galaxies. Galaxies, in turn, coalesced together into massive galaxy clusters that are linked across huge stretches of space by filaments of dark matter, creating what is now known as the cosmic web.
For years, scientists have speculated that magnetic fields within the cosmic web would help to produce shocks that might glow dimly in radio light. Now, for the first time, astronomers have captured this “predicted emission from the formation and growth of the large-scale structure of the Universe,” according to a recent study in Science Advances.
A strange blob has been seen rapidly circling our galaxy’s central black hole. Now, astronomers have identified it as the exploded debris from two merging stars.
The Big Bang was hot, dense, uniform, and filled with matter and energy. Before that? There was nothing. Here’s how that’s possible.
All things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe… Observer-participancy gives rise to information.
An international team of researchers stumbled upon an exploding supernova in a distant spiral galaxy, using data from the first year of interstellar observation by the James Webb Space Telescope.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST or Webb) is an orbiting infrared observatory that will complement and extend the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope. It covers longer wavelengths of light, with greatly improved sensitivity, allowing it to see inside dust clouds where stars and planetary systems are forming today as well as looking further back in time to observe the first galaxies that formed in the early universe.
