Even though dark matter has not yet been found, scientists are confident it exists as its effects can be seen in the rotation of galaxies and the bending of light as it makes its way through the universe.
The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) dark matter experiment has found no traces of dark matter.
(A computer simulation of a black hole. NASA, ESA, and D. Coe, J. Anderson, and R. van der Marel (STScI))
In case you haven’t heard, there is a very, very big problem with the universe: About 80% of all of the stuff inside it is missing.
Astronomers call this material “dark matter.” They know it’s out there because its huge mass tugs on and shapes galaxies, but no one has ever detected the material itself. Aside from exerting a gravitational pull, dark matter doesn’t seem to interact with stars, planets, dust, atoms, subatomic particles, or any other “normal” matter as we know it. It’s essentially invisible.
Posted in cosmology, quantum physics
Inspired by the Allegory of the Cave from Plato, till today’s quantum physics and multiverse theories, a visual essay about perception and knowledge as reflection of our reality.
A new paper asserts that a physical body might be able to pass through a wormhole in spite of the extreme tidal forces that are at play.
A physical object, such as a person or a spacecraft, could theoretically make it through a wormhole in the centre of a black hole, and maybe even access another universe on the other side, physicists have suggested.
In what looks like the logical extension of the plot of Interstellar – where astronauts try to hunt down another universe after the catastrophic effects of climate change destroy Earth – physicists have modelled what would happen to a chair, a scientist, and a spacecraft, if each one ended up inside the spherical wormhole of a black hole.
Tl;dr: Yes, but it’s unlikely.
If black holes attract your attention, white holes might blow your mind.
A white hole is a time-reversed black hole, an anti-collapse. While a black hole contains a region from which nothing can escape, a white hole contains a region to which nothing can fall in. Since the time-reversal of a solution of General Relativity is another solution, we know that white holes exist mathematically. But are they real?
A new study of the early universe reveals how it could have been formed from an older collapsing universe, rather than being brand new. The universe is currently expanding and it is a common theory that this is the result of the ‘Big Bang’ – the universe bursting into existence from a point of infinitely dense and hot material.
The final chapter in CNET’s historic “crowdsourced” sci-fi novel is out. You can read the whole thing here. Transhumanism is a large part of it (and a fictional version of my being President is in it too). This book was written by the participating public. This was a huge plus for the Transhumanist movement, as it meant transhumanism appeared many times on CNET as chapters were released (CNET is the world’s leading tech site in traffic):
In the finale of CNET’s historic crowdsourced sci-fi novel, the war on Earth is over, but the story of the multiverse may just be getting started.
