Arithmetic is fundamental to science; but we tend to take it for granted. Few realize its foundations are shaky. Now there are exciting ways to firm them up. We are sold a knowledge pyramid like this: Sciences rest on a foundation of physics; physics on math; math on arithmetic. And arithmetic on logic— but, actually, […]
Tag Archives: universe
The Beginning of Time
When did time begin? Science now has an answer. How did time begin? For millennia this was a subject for speculation, little of it based on science. But there is now a philosophic answer. Space came first. Time began soon after space. Very soon. Here’s how. From recent measurements we know that time began 13,799,000,000 […]
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 […]
A Foundation for Building Real Physics (At Last)
Physics has two great theories, general relativity and quantum mechanics. Each does very well in its domain. That is nice but plainly isn’t real. Each is fundamentally at odds with the other. And neither of them works at all with the conditions that existed when the universe began. How can we find a single theory […]
New Light On the Large-Scale Structure of the Universe Rethinking the origin of supermassive black holes
Quadrillions of galaxies make up some structures in the universe. How did such structures arise? How do the galaxies that they are made of grow? As Winston Churchill said of Russia, this is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Now primordial black holes offer us new hope of an answer. What is […]
The Dark Matter Mystery Is Solved! LIGO’s observations show mid-sized primordial black holes are not improbable.
For years Dark Matter has confronted physics with a massive mystery. A recent article describes it as ‘the invisible substance that astronomers believe accounts for about 80% of the stuff in the universe.’ But what is it? This question has physicists searching for obscure new particles with the world’s largest machine, the Large Hadron Collider. […]
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 […]
What Made the Big Bang Big? What Made the Big Bang Bang? A radical rethinking of our understanding of the universe
Two weeks ago we took a look at a question from systems engineer Muralidharan Thiyagarajan. Referring to the observation that space everywhere is expanding, he asks: ‘What creates the space?’ My answer is: At the Planck level (named for German physicist Max Planck who first described it) where space is made of incredibly tiny quanta, […]
The Laws of Physics Are Not Sacrosanct
We like to think of laws of physics as fundamental, as properties of the universe. Actually, not. They are our inventions, tales we tell ourselves in terms of concepts we construct. They are good statistical approximations. But they don’t tell us what’s really going on. The real world is happening at Planck scale, named for […]