Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: physics

Nietzsche’s intuition about time’s nature likely emerged from his engagement with contemporary scientific thought, particularly the work of Johann Friedrich Herbart and Roger Joseph Boscovich, whose atomistic theories influenced Nietzsche’s conception of force and matter (Small, 2001). Additionally, Nietzsche’s reading of Heinrich Czolbe and Otto Caspari exposed him to cyclical cosmological theories that were precursors to modern conceptions of cosmological cycles.

More compelling than these historical influences, however, is the philosophical insight Nietzsche demonstrated in recognizing that a truly eternal cosmos with finite configurations must contain repetition. This insight, while not formulated in the mathematical language of relativity, nevertheless grasped a fundamental consequence of infinite time and finite states — one that would later be encoded in physical theory.

The convergence between Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence and modern physics becomes even more significant when we recognize similar conceptions in numerous cultural and religious traditions. This suggests a perennial human intuition about time’s nature that transcends historical and cultural boundaries.

Read more | >

A long-simmering disagreement over the universe’s present-day expansion rate shows no signs of resolution, leaving experts increasing ly vexed.

By Anil Ananthaswamy edited by Lee Billings

Over the past decade, two very different ways of calculating the rate at which the universe is expanding have come to be at odds, a disagreement dubbed the Hubble tension, after 20th-century astronomer Edwin Hubble. Experts have speculated that this dispute might be temporary, stemming from subtle shortcomings in observations or analyses that will eventually be corrected rather than from some flawed understanding of the physics of the cosmos. Now, however, a new study that relies on an independent measure of the properties of galaxies has strengthened the case for the tension. Quite possibly, it’s here to stay.

Read more | >

“I give you God’s view,” said Toby Cubitt, a physicist turned computer scientist at University College London and part of the vanguard of the current charge into the unknowable, and “you still can’t predict what it’s going to do.”

Eva Miranda, a mathematician at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) in Spain, calls undecidability a “next-level chaotic thing.”

Undecidability means that certain questions simply cannot be answered. It’s an unfamiliar message for physicists, but it’s one that mathematicians and computer scientists know well. More than a century ago, they rigorously established that there are mathematical questions that can never be answered, true statements that can never be proved. Now physicists are connecting those unknowable mathematical systems with an increasing number of physical ones and thereby beginning to map out the hard boundary of knowability in their field as well.

Read more | >

Don’t judge space junk’s potential for destruction using your Earthly instincts: Traveling at tens of thousands of miles per hour in space, even a small object has the potential to inflict major damage. In one incident that demonstrates that fact of physics, a 2mm piece of space once junk put a 5cm-wide dent in a climate satellite. A modest move up the scale brings much more power: “A one-centimeter piece of debris has the energy of a hand grenade,” ESA’s Tiago Soares told DW.

In an ominous 2009 incident, a Russian Cosmos satellite collided with an Iridium satellite, creating a cloud of about 2,000 pieces of junk measuring 10cm or more. That’s brings us to the nightmare scenario that should fill you with dread: The Kessler Effect. Imagine an initial major impact that creates hundreds of shards, which then start colliding with more orbiting objects, setting off a chain reaction. Actually, you don’t need your imagination. While some scientists say it wasn’t fully accurate in depicting the physics, Hollywood ventured to depict the Kessler Effect in the 2013 movie, Gravity:

Read more | >

A team of physicists has made groundbreaking observations in a semiconductor-based time crystal by periodically driving it with light. As the frequency was altered, the system transitioned from perfect synchronization to complex chaos, forming structures known as the Farey tree and the devil’s st

Read more | >

Astronomers at the University of Warwick have made an exciting discovery—a rare, high-mass compact binary star system located just 150 light-years away in the Milky Way. This marks the first time such a system has been observed, offering valuable insights into the origins of type 1a supernovae.

Astronomers have confirmed a pair of white dwarfs on a collision course to become a type 1a supernova—the brightest cosmic explosion. This system, the heaviest of its kind ever identified, has a combined mass of 1.56 times that of the sun.

Separated by only 1/60th of the Earth-sun distance, the stars currently orbit each other in just over 14 hours. However, gravitational wave radiation will gradually draw them closer over billions of years. On the verge of their explosive end, the stars will orbit so rapidly that a single orbit will take only 30–40 seconds.

Read more | >

Monash University researchers have extended Descartes’ Circle Theorem by finding a general equation for any number of tangent circles, using advanced mathematical tools inspired by physics. A centuries-old geometric puzzle dating back to the 17th century has finally been solved by mathematicians

Read more | >

Whether extra dimensions prove to be physical realities or useful mathematical constructs, they have already transformed our understanding of the universe. They have forced us to reconsider fundamental assumptions about space, time, and the nature of physical law. And they remind us that reality may be far richer and more complex than our everyday experience suggests — that beyond the familiar dimensions of length, width, height, and time, there may exist entire realms waiting to be discovered and, perhaps one day, explored.

The theoretical physicist John Wheeler once remarked that “we live on an island of knowledge surrounded by an ocean of ignorance.” Our exploration of extra dimensions extends the shoreline of that island, pushing into uncharted waters with the tools of mathematics, experiment, and imagination. Though we may never set foot in the fifth dimension or beyond, the very act of reaching toward these hidden aspects of reality expands our perspective and deepens our understanding of the cosmos we call home.

As we continue this grand scientific adventure, we carry forward the legacy of those who first dared to imagine worlds beyond our immediate perception — from the mathematicians who developed the language of higher-dimensional geometry to the physicists who incorporated these concepts into our most fundamental theories. Their vision, coupled with rigorous analysis and experimental testing, illuminates a path toward an ever more complete understanding of the universe in all its dimensions.

Read more | >

The world of robotics is undergoing a significant transformation, driven by rapid advancements in physical AI. This evolution is accelerating the time to market for new robotic solutions, enhancing confidence in their safety capabilities, and contributing to the powering of physical AI in factories and warehouses.

Announced at GTC, Newton is an open-source, extensible physics engine developed by NVIDIA, Google DeepMind, and Disney Research to advance robot learning and development.

NVIDIA Cosmos launched as a world foundation model (WFM) platform under an open model license to accelerate physical AI development of autonomous machines such as autonomous vehicles and robots.

Read more | >