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It’s how successful our current theories are. Some 500 years ago, there was one scientific phenomenon that was, without controversy, extremely well-understood: the motion of the celestial objects in the sky. […]
All scientific theories, at some level, are wrong. That’s why consensus is so vital. There are two important and common words that, when used scientifically, have a very different meaning than […]
Deniers will never stop misleading others. Here’s the truth. Every so often, advocates of a fringe theory — one that doesn’t fit the evidence as well as the mainstream theory — do what they can […]
It’s not a gambit. It’s not fraud. It’s not an opinion. And it’s not biased like you think it is. Most of us, when we think about what science is, default […]
The definitive answer requires better, unbiased data. Despite all the advances that have occurred in human history, one extraordinary puzzle still remains right in our own backyard: we aren’t sure how […]
If we want our conclusions to be meaningful, our data had better be robust. When it comes to the Universe, there’s a whole lot that doesn’t add up. All the matter […]
One look at the uncertainties and the assumptions changes the story tremendously. Is there intelligent life out there in the Milky Way beyond our own Solar System? If so, how […]
The Big Bang is our accepted origin of the Universe. But is there another possibility? Since the mid-1960s and the discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background, the Big Bang has […]
Demanding appropriate levels of skepticism and scrutiny isn’t cruelty, but rather demonstrates scientific integrity and intellectual honesty. Every few months, a novel headline will fly across the world, claiming to […]
And what might we learn as we collect new, never-before-seen data? If you took one of history’s top scientists from 100 years ago and dropped them into today’s world, what […]
Forgetting them, at any step, can lead to unscientific conclusions. No one, not even the smartest among us, were competent scientists from the outset. The concept of science is simple […]
When one group says “A” and another group says “B,” consider that everyone might be wrong. One of the biggest enemies of scientific truth is the setup of a false dichotomy. […]
The theoretical reasons to expect it are compelling, but the technology required to detect it is unfathomable. All throughout our galaxy, millions of black holes of a variety of masses […]
There are exposed planetary cores orbiting stars, and we may have already found them. When we take a look at the planets in our Solar System, there’s a pretty clear difference […]
In 2006, the IAU demoted Pluto. Here’s what we know today. In 2006, the last planet in our Solar System suffered an unforgettable insult, as Pluto — known for generations as our ninth […]
The history of the Universe is forever imprinted in our own bodies. We can learn a lot about the history of the Universe just by looking at each of our own […]
We might live in a quantum Universe, but we’ll violate the principle of relativity if space is discrete. If you try and divide matter into smaller and smaller chunks, you’ll […]
It might seem puzzling, in a Universe bound by the speed of light, that this could be true. Here’s the science behind it. If you look out into the distant Universe, […]
Our Universe is 13.8 billion years old, and our Sun formed about 2/3rds of the way through. Here’s what came before it. When it comes to the great cosmic question of […]
If they saw us as we were before the recent industrial revolution, would there be any reason to particularly care about us? All across the Universe, trillions of galaxies can be […]
As soon as you start thinking about energy and gravity, you’ll realize the need to go beyond it. When it comes to a science like physics, theoretical expectations must always be […]
The top of Mauna Kea is the ideal physical site for this new, ready-to-be-built telescope. But that’s far from the only concern. For many years, astronomers have looked forward to a […]
Intelligent aliens, if they exist in the galaxy or the Universe, might be detectable from a variety of signals: electromagnetic, from planet modification, or because they’re spacefaring. But we haven’t […]
There’s no such thing as a theory that’s too beautiful to be wrong, if it doesn’t agree with experiment. The history of physics is filled with great ideas that you’ve […]
It’s the first, most naive question you might think to ask. The solution is a lot more complicated than you imagine. According to a large amount of evidence, the overwhelming majority […]
When we place the known objects in the Solar System in order, four inner, rocky worlds and four, outer, giant worlds stand out. Traditionally, these were defined as planets. Will […]
Our dark matter searches have yet to yield a robust detection. Could we be looking in all the wrong places? There’s perhaps no more fundamental question to ask than, “what is […]
Spoiler: it isn’t the end of the Universe, and it’s not likely to lead to new evidence for the Multiverse, either. On March 14, 2018, the most famous and celebrated […]
We see matter, but not antimatter, in our Universe. Could black holes be the answer? One of the greatest cosmic puzzles in our entire Universe is why there’s so much more […]