Did Einstein know he left a key to one of the greatest puzzles inflicting physics today encoded in his equations? It has now come to light thanks to advances in two fields—gravity-wave detection and computing. A recent paper in leading journal Science by German physicist Bernd Brügmann looks technical, but has deep implications so straightforward […]
Tag Archives: spacetime
The wave that shook the world gets recognition but not the recognition it deserves
In 2015 scientists at LIGO observed a wave of gravitation—a distortion of space itself that came from two black holes colliding more than a billion light years away. LIGO is a gravity telescope of exquisite sensitivity. Its observation shaped up as the top science story of the century. In record time, this week it nailed […]
An amazing birthday present: a universe that allows time travel and helps us understand our existence
In 1949 Austrian-American logician Kurt Gödel gave a friend a strange birthday present: a rotating universe. Gödel is widely regarded as the world’s greatest logician. Albert Einstein, the greatest physicist, was his best friend. For years they walked home from the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study almost every day. The present—for Einstein’s 70th birthday—dealt with […]
Physics has long been confused about the concept of ‘now’. New insights show that it is fundamental.
A sense of Now is the universal human experience. Yet modern physics cannot handle the concept of the present moment. Indeed relativity—our great theory of space and time—insisted on embedding it within a time dimension and then crossbreeding this dimension with three space dimensions to make spacetime. This was a blunder. It blocks progress. Physics […]
The speed of light is a longstanding mystery. Planck-scale physics provides an elegant solution.
By 1900 the speed of light was known to be a constant. Many experiments had measured it. In 1905 Albert Einstein took a giant leap forward. He said this cosmic speed limit—denoted by the symbol c—is not just a measured fact; it is a fundamental property of the universe. This became the basis of his […]
What’s Wrong with Relativity?
There is no absolute frame of reference. It’s called the Principle of Relativity. Problem is: The principle is wrong. How so? Let’s take a closer look at what it is. Italian physicist Galileo Galilei had an idea. He said an experiment that’s done inside a smoothly moving ship can’t tell you that it’s moving. In […]
The Flow of Time
Does time flow? It is a fundamental question. It has confounded physics for hundreds of years. It still does. We sense the flow of time. Today many physicists say this is an illusion. I say they don’t understand. Physics at the very largest and the very smallest scales leads to a simple way to make […]
Planck-scale: The Answer to Figuring Out Our Weird Universe New fundamentals needed now.
The messages are clear but are we listening? For almost a hundred years we’ve known the universe has been expanding since it began. For almost twenty years we’ve known the expansion has been accelerating for billions of years. With each new discovery physics hastens to adjust its theories to fit the new facts. Now more […]
The Next Scientific Revolution
Breaking news: We are seeing a new Scientific Revolution. It will be the biggest ever. And I mean ever. Odds on it will be called “the Planck revolution”. Does German physicist Max Planck deserve this? I don’t think so. I think of it as the Riemann revolution. Readers know that more than 150 years ago […]