Tag Archives: physics

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Matter is actually just fluctuations in the quantum vacuum

Another classic case of the headline saying it all: physicists have confirmed that matter is no more than fluctuations in the quantum vacuum. Everything is arguably illusory, including ourselves. All of a sudden I have a vision of Terence McKenna muttering Beatles lyrics to the hyperspace elves in between fits of gently manic laughter…

And while we’re in brain-bending existential scientific headf*ck territory, why don’t we all get behind conceptual artist Jonathon Keats and his plan to turn the contents of a nuclear waste dump into a massive machine for generating new universes?

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Mind bending discussion of life, the universe, and everything

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The anthropic principle, arguably one of the most important intellectual topics of the 21st century, is explored in this intriguing article in Discover Magazine:

Physicists don’t like coincidences. They like even less the notion that life is somehow central to the universe, and yet recent discoveries are forcing them to confront that very idea.

Life, it seems, is not an incidental component of the universe, burped up out of a random chemical brew on a lonely planet to endure for a few fleeting ticks of the cosmic clock. In some strange sense, it appears that we are not adapted to the universe; the universe is adapted to us.

Call it a fluke, a mystery, a miracle. Or call it the biggest problem in physics. Short of invoking a benevolent creator, many physicists see only one possible explanation: Our universe may be but one of perhaps infinitely many universes in an inconceivably vast multi­verse. Most of those universes are barren, but some, like ours, have conditions suitable for life.

[via Slashdot][image from RonAlmog on flickr]

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The Earth’s cooking… so let’s move it further away from the sun!

solar systemTowing an entire planet out of trouble… sounds pretty crazy, doesn’t it? About as gloriously pulpy a sci-fi plot as you could ever think up. Thankfully it’s not the latest geoengineering idea designed to cope with global warming, but a suggestion on how we might cope with the expansion of the Sun as it ages, which won’t be a problem for a good billion years or so. Then again, it won’t be a problem for us at all unless we get through the next century or two…

Either which way, moving entire planets isn’t something that could be accomplished in a timescale of any great use to humans in a solar emergency, but it makes a nice hypothetical scenario for scientists modelling the dynamics of planetary systems. [image by alicepopkorn]

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Time is fleeting: Strange clock at Cambridge

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“Conventional clocks with hands are boring,” says inventor John Taylor. Much more interesting to build a four-foot-wide mechanical timepiece that has no hands or numbers, uses blue lights flashing through slits to tell the time, and is accurate only once in five minutes. Watch it work in a short video narrated by Taylor.

He based the clock on a design by longitude pioneer John Harrison, who was calibrating the one he built himself when he died in 1776. The ominous grasshopper sculpture atop the face is a tribute to another Harrison invention, the “grasshopper escapement” that releases a clock’s gears with each swing of the pendulum. The “Chronophage” (time-eater) was unveiled at Cambridge by Stephen Hawking, in a ceremony that ran 14 minutes and 55 seconds late. Taylor says:

“I … wanted to depict that time is a destroyer – once a minute is gone you can’t get it back …. That’s why my grasshopper is not a Disney character. He is a ferocious beast that over the seconds has his tongue lolling out, his jaws opening, then on the 59th second he gulps down time.”

[Hawking unveils the chronophage by rubberpaw]

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The Body Politic

sakharovWe had a lively (but civil!) discussion about the psychology of political choices last week.  So how about physiology?  Science published a report suggesting that people who respond most strongly to disturbing images seem to have political views that most people would call conservative.  The test used gadgets to measure skin moisture and blink intensity. Pictures included a big spider on a face and a guy covered with blood.

Yes, I’m skeptical too.  The subjects were Nebraskans, residents of one of the more conservative of these United States in terms of voting. And if you showed this arachnophobic left-leaning blogger some of those disturbing images he’d cry like — well, like a Wall Street banker, this week.

Meanwhile, in another poli-sci story: When vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s email was easily hacked and screen-shots pasted all over the internets, she and her supporters immediately called for a repeal of the Patriot Act and warrantless surveillance, because now they know what it feels like to have their privacy invaded without warning and for no good reason.  Civil liberties enjoyed a resurgence in the U.S., and …

Sorry.  Dreaming on the job.

And just to confirm that, as The Posies sing, everybody is a frakking liar (video):

The world’s largest particle collider malfunctioned within hours of its launch to great fanfare, but its operator didn’t report the problem for a week.

[Bust of Dr. Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov: photo by dbking]