Reader Stevo asks a deep question: ‘If space is granular and Planck size is the shortest “length” then what geometric “shape” is a single Planck “thingie”?’ Geometry studies size and shape. Last week we saw Bernhard Riemann in 1856 divining how to do geometry in either of two different kinds of space: continuous space and […]
A new understanding of the universe is wending its way into our world. What is it? Where does it come from? First let’s look at the old understanding. The Big Bang is the standard model of cosmology. It is based on general relativity and on evidence that space itself is expanding. It projects this picture […]
How do things move? At first glance this may not seem to be a problem. We tend to take motion for granted. But a long-standing mystery lies behind it. Now new answers are becoming clear, with cutting-edge insights into the nature of space and time and matter. Philosophy and physics have long studied motion (aka […]
The idea of the universe as a single thing has roots in ancient societies. It speaks to our existential questions: Where are we? What is our relation to the world? In the fifth century BCE, Zeno of Elea ponders whether the world is one thing or many. He says the concept of plurality is a […]
Man in motion (myself, not the Night Ranger album), I could get conflicted (once again): The universe moves on, I see this, yet I know it never moves. It has no way to move. It has no time. At any given now it simply is; so now is all it ever has. It is a […]