Lifeboat Foundation

For all of history, there’s been an underlying but unspoken assumption about the laws that govern the Universe: If you know enough information about a system, you can predict precisely how that system will behave in the future. The assumption is, in other words, deterministic. The classical equations of motion — Newton’s laws — are completely deterministic. The laws of gravity, both Newton’s and Einstein’s, are deterministic. Even Maxwell’s equations, governing electricity and magnetism, are 100% deterministic as well.

But that picture of the Universe got turned on its head with a series of discoveries that began in the late 1800s. Starting with radioactivity and radioactive decay, humanity slowly uncovered the quantum nature of reality, casting doubt on the idea that we live in a deterministic Universe. Predictively, many aspects of reality could only be discussed in a statistical fashion: where a set of probable outcomes could be presented, but which one would occur, and when, could not be precisely established. The hopes of avoiding the necessity of “quantum spookiness” was championed by many, including Einstein, with the most compelling alternative to determinism put forth by Louis de Broglie and David Bohm. Decades later, Bohmian mechanics was finally put to an experimental test, where it failed spectacularly. Here’s how the best alternative to the spooky nature of reality simply didn’t hold up.

Going to smaller and smaller distance scales reveals more fundamental views of nature, which means if we can understand and describe the smallest scales, we can build our way to […].

Avi Loeb, Professor of Science at Harvard University, joins us to discuss a recent interstellar visitor, if we’ve already encountered alien technology, and whether we’re ultimately alone in the cosmos.

Topics discussed in this episode include:

Continue reading “Avi Loeb on ‘Oumuamua, Aliens, Space Archeology, Great Filters, and Superstructures” »

David Chalmers, Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science at NYU, joins us to discuss his newest book Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy.

Topics discussed in this episode include:

Continue reading “David Chalmers on Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy” »

According to a University of Portsmouth study, a new physics law could allow for the early prediction of genetic mutations.

The study discovers that the second law of information dynamics, or “infodynamics,” behaves differently from the second law of thermodynamics. This finding might have major implications for how genomic research, evolutionary biology, computing, big data, physics, and cosmology develop in the future.

Lead author Dr. Melvin Vopson is from the University’s School of Mathematics and Physics. He states “In physics, there are laws that govern everything that happens in the universe, for example how objects move, how energy flows, and so on. Everything is based on the laws of physics. One of the most powerful laws is the second law of thermodynamics, which establishes that entropy – a measure of disorder in an isolated system – can only increase or stay the same, but it will never decrease.”

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Perhaps one of the most common technologies seen in science fiction is anti-gravity and gravity manipulation. Today we’ll examine if there’s an scientific pathways in physics to permit such technology, and what sort of amazing options it might offer if developed in the future.

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Continue reading “Clarketech: Anti-Gravity” »

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Continue reading “Are warp drives science now?” »

An exploration of10 Unsettling Alien Technosignatures that Could be Very Close.

My Appearance on Fade to Black with Jimmy Church.

Continue reading “10 Unsettling Alien Technosignatures that Could be Very Close” »

The natural world possesses its own intrinsic electrical grid composed of a global web of tiny bacteria-generated nanowires in the soil and oceans that “breathe” by exhaling excess electrons.

In a new study, Yale University researchers discovered that light is a surprising ally in fostering this electronic activity within biofilm bacteria. Exposing bacteria-produced nanowires to light, they found, yielded an up to a 100-fold increase in electrical conductivity.

The findings were published Sept. 7 in the journal Nature Communications.