Precise measurements say the universe is expanding. The measurements don’t show new matter. They show new space. This leaves those who think of space as empty with a conceptual puzzle. As cosmologist Marcus Chown once said, ‘How can nothing expand?’ Muralidharan Thiyagarajan, who is a systems engineer with Infosys in Chennai, has another way to […]
This week we venture into mathematical philosophy to shine a light on some long-standing mind benders that maybe we can now resolve. And they turn out to be profoundly practical. Does infinity exist or is it a figment of imagination? Are numbers a property of the universe that we discover or are they ideas we […]
Skepticism’s healthy. These days we don’t have to believe a news story. But to get the benefits of skepticism we need to check stories out. A good-news story in a past Science Seen post has a simple message: Hot water can cure the common cold. Some who read the post or social-media re-posts were skeptical. […]
News from the Planck satellite is almost 14 billion years old. It’s coded in cold photons from the Big Flash, let loose about 380,000 years after the universe began and stretched as space expanded while they winged their way. The photons reaching Planck bear the same message as those seen by COBE and WMAP but […]