Philosophy involves the study of ideas. Yet some (like Stephen Hawking) say philosophy is dead. Others (such as Neil deGrasse Tyson) say philosophy may be alive but its ideas have no use in physics. Both of these exemplars hold the degree of Doctor of Philosophy so they should know. But so do I and I […]
In recent posts we’ve touched upon the sorry state of physics. ‘Sorry state’ is not just my view; many physicists and science writers see this the same way. Physics has now all but lost experimental contact with the real world. What went wrong? How can we fix it? And why should we care? What went […]
In your spaceship, far from any star, can you tell if you are moving? Do you even know what moving means? Physicists thought about this long before we made our way into near-Earth space. And they tangled it up with a concept called the æther. The word aether was once widely understood. Winston Churchill uses […]
Sir Isaac Newton was a serious two timer long before that term took on its modern meaning. In 1687 he spoke of two kinds of time: Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature flows equably without relation to anything external, and by another name is called duration; [and] relative, apparent […]
Last week’s post looked at how physics turned its back on time. It had consequences. Today, leading physicists speak of time in despairing terms. Some propose to abandon it. Though buried deep in science journals, this situation eats at the roots of our economy. Is time lost beyond recall? Let’s recap: In 1905 Albert Einstein […]
Time matters to us all. We are defined by time. Mostly we don’t think about it. But it’s easier to think about than you might expect. Time became important in the 15th century. It came to be synonymous with clocks. Accurate chronometers would help sailors figure where they were at sea. Many made bold voyages—or […]
These days―thanks to the mash-up of Leonard Hofstadter, Sheldon Cooper, David Saltzberg, Ed Robertson and the Barenaked Ladies―most everyone has heard of the Big Bang theory. And most everyone knows it ‘all started with the Big Bang!’ Most everyone is wrong. Wikipedia has it precisely right. It says: The Big Bang theory is the prevailing […]
Making Sense of Space Last week we looked closer at the crisis in cosmology. Physicists are inventing increasingly implausible models to describe what they observe. Clinging to descriptions, they abandon understanding. Indeed some heavy-hitter physicists propose to abandon physics. For example, American Nobel-Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg says: Now we may be at a new turning […]
It’s a question many ponder. We know the universe is big. But is it finite or infinite? And why does this matter? It’s 1584. Dominican friar and Neapolitan philosopher Giordano Bruno publishes De l’infinito universo et Mondi. He argues that God, being infinite, would create an infinite universe. He has no evidence to back his […]