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 […]
Seas are rising. It is no longer a question of whether this will be a problem. It is a matter of: How high and how fast? Recent science has both uncertainty and answers. Together they explain why geopolitics may soon become a much more common word. Science studies evidence of two kinds of steady sea-level […]
Breakthroughs in physics drive the economy. Our economy could use new drive. Canadian Blackberry innovator Mike Lazaridis understands this. ‘We need a new discovery,’ he said a few years ago and gave $170M to endow the Perimeter Institute to study fundamental physics. History offers examples. In 1687 Isaac Newton kicks off mechanics. It set the […]
A new cosmic contradiction is begging for an explanation. We’ve known for years that space is expanding. Now new measurements of the rate at which it is expanding seem to differ from previous ones based on the standard cosmological model. New physics often comes from measurements that don’t fit theory. Here is my take on […]
Is Bassar al-Assad causing all those Syrian refugees to flee? Well, yes, in a way — but also no. Science now has something to say of this though few have noticed: Chances are that climate change led to the war the refugees are fleeing. They lived in a region that both climate modeling and weather […]
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 […]
Here is a mystery that needs help from armchair philosophers. Nowadays physics describes the world in terms of “fields”. What, then, is a field? It is weasel math that physicists invented to allow them to ignore the paradox of action at a distance. In the annals of thought the concept of action at a distance […]
Iridium Skies Will Be Safer Losing an international flight over the ocean should soon become a thing of the past. This is a perk that we will get from a new satellite array and a new airspace-safety business. The new satellites will do much more than that. Raymond Hall, a former trans-Pacific pilot, says they […]
How about a multi-billion-dollar good-news story? Science may have found a way to grow more food. It’s a source of nitrogen: bacteria that live in leaves. It may be worth a mint in new ecosystem services, which is a name for what Earth does for us by being there. Here’s the scene you need to […]