Might Armageddon come not from an asteroid or a comet, but by something completely unseen altogether? “Honestly, if you’re given the choice between Armageddon or tea, you don’t say ‘what […]
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Even most of the pros don’t know all 10. This post was contributed to Starts With A Bang by Sabine Hossenfelder. Sabine is a theoretical physicist specialized in quantum gravity […]
In 30 million years, we’ll undergo star formation unlike anything else since before there were mammals on Earth. “Think about it this way — a boomerang goes out and comes back to you […]
Traveling to the future is possible, but the “back” part runs into trouble. Mr. Strickland: “I noticed your band is on the roster for the dance auditions after school today. […]
Exclusion and a lack of diversity are the breeding grounds for harassment. “There is no kind of harassment that a man may not inflict on a woman with impunity in […]
If String Theory has nothing to do with reality, what are our options? “I just think too many nice things have happened in string theory for it to be all […]
Theorems are gold in math. But in physics? The Universe will surprise you. “What we need is more people who specialize in the impossible.”–Theodore Roethke Physics is one of the […]
What it means if there’s no life anywhere else in the Universe, and what we know so far. “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves […]
How new developments in measuring the highest-energy particles and earliest signals from the Universe are teaching us what all this is. Big questions in the field of Cosmology are often […]
It might not sound impressive, but the physics behind it — and the power of its applications — are literally world-changing. Image credit: Orphek LEDs, via http://orphek.com/about/aquarium-led-lighting/. “Everyone must leave something behind when he […]
We’ve learned more about comets than ever before thanks to it. But we would’ve learned a lot more, if not for one unfounded fear. “Every dreamer knows that it is […]
Is there a way to see past the barrier the Universe puts up before it became transparent to light? Image credit: Mark Kamionkowski, of gravitational waves. “From earliest times, humans — explorers […]
The scariest of all possible fates results in the ultimate destruction of everything that ever was or will be. Image credit: Boren-Simon 2.8–8 ED POWERNEWT Astrograph Image Gallery. “Why do […]
With all the matter-and-energy so close together and so dense at the moment of the Big Bang, why didn’t it recollapse? Image credit: Mark A. Garlick / University of Warwick. […]
There have been many supernovae in the Milky Way seen over the past 2,000 years, but nobody ever saw the most recent ones! Image credit: NASA/CXC/NCSU/K.Borkowski et al. “When I […]
And what they mean for humans here on Earth. “Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.” –Alexander […]
If you had never heard of global warming before, how would you figure out whether it’s happening? “There is no question that climate change is happening; the only arguable point […]
The physics of accurately knowing just how much time has passed. “While friendship itself has an air of eternity about it, seeming to transcend all natural limits, there is hardly any […]
Keep politics out of science? Of course. But think what we could achieve with more science in our politics. “One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree […]
How the most powerful telescope ever built will owe its successes and discoveries to scientists who’ll never get the glory. “The soul without imagination is what an observatory would be without […]
Why the kind of knowledge you get by asking the Universe questions about itself is the most valuable type of knowledge there is. “I’m also uncomfortable with dogmatic believers; to my […]
What the entire natural history of everything would look like compressed down into a single calendar year. “[D]on’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live […]
When all the galaxies, stars, gas, dust, dark matter and all the other forms of matter and radiation are summed together, its energy still pales in comparison to dark energy. […]
We are currently in the midst of one the biggest software and hardware revolutions we’ve ever witnessed. With processing power, storage, and bandwidth increasing exponentially, smart phones and smart tablets […]
Editor’s Note: Please welcome Korey Peters, who’s written a guest post about an atheist organization he’s founded that he’s calling the Calgary Secular Church. In this post, he’ll explain what […]
Following the demise of cap and trade legislation, green group leaders acknowledged that despite spending several hundred million dollars to pass the bill, they were unable to create public demand […]
By now everyone has heard (and heard again…and again) thatthe American baby boomers are aging. Even their Canadian cousins are aging – infact marginally grayer then their neighbor to the […]
Kickstarter is a site that allows anyone to raise money from an online community in order to fund any sort of project. Here's a primer on how to turn your vision into a reality.
Nicolas Kristof recently wrote a column in the New York Times urging Americans to teach their children Spanish before Chinese. Chinese has become quite the coveted prize for New Yorkers: “Chinese […]
It’s plain to see that I’m an optimist, sometimes more than is socially comfortable. The ease with which I dismiss the disastrous economic decline above serves as one example of that. I wrote that the recession will benefit our political system, and, before I cut this line, as having “rewarded our company for methodical execution and ruthless efficiency by removing competitors from the landscape.” I make no mention of the disastrous effects on millions of people, and the great uncertainty that grips any well-briefed mind, because it truly doesn’t stand in the foreground of my mind (despite suffering personal loss of wealth).
Our species is running towards a precipice with looming dangers like economic decline, political unrest, climate crisis, and more threatening to grip us as we jump off the edge, but my optimism is stronger now than ever before. On the other side of that looming gap are extraordinary breakthroughs in healthcare, communications technology, access to space, human productivity, artistic creation and literally hundreds of fields. With the right execution and a little bit of luck we’ll all live to see these breakthroughs — and members of my generation will live to see dramatically lengthened life-spans, exploration and colonization of space, and more opportunity than ever to work for passion instead of simply working for pay.
Instead of taking this space to regale you with the many personal and focused changes I intend to make in 2009, let me rather encourage you to spend time this year thinking, as I’m going to, more about what we can do in 2009 to positively affect the future our culture will face in 2020, 2050, 3000 and beyond.