The “constant points of light” in the sky are often anything but. “To be is to be the value of a variable.” –Willard Van Orman Quine We look up at […]
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You searched for: Physical Constants
A new study says critical thinking is a teachable skill, but who is going to teach it?
The Argentine leader is expected to discuss gay marriage and abortion while in Philadelphia, but will he confront the systemic abuses plaguing his Church?
When everything passes away, what will be left? “End? No, the journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of […]
It’s been more than three years since we’ve found the Higgs boson. So how does it give particles mass? “This is evidently a discovery of a new particle. If anybody […]
There are three things an idea must do to become a full-fledged scientific theory. How does the Multiverse stack up? “It’s hard to build models of inflation that don’t lead […]
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 […]
If all the worlds formed together, they have the ingredients for life, too. Maybe it isn’t just Earth who got lucky. “If I had to describe myself to an alien […]
Throwback Thursday: How Dark Matter’s #1 Competitor Died The only way out is to modify the laws of gravity, and our best observations rule those modifications out. “The discrepancy between […]
Twenty-one strangers with different values and views, thrown together on a Grand Canyon rafting trip, managed to set aside those differences and build community.
The Anthropic Principle is more limited than we like to believe. “There is a voice inside of youThat whispers all day long,‘I feel this is right for me,I know that […]
Brainwaves may be the future of account security, according to researchers. But it will be a while before it comes to the consumer market.
It’s the leftover glow from the Big Bang. Here’s what it teaches us, and why you shouldn’t worry about “anomalies” in the CMB. “The radiation left over from the Big […]
This isn’t the Matrix. Should you wish to face the ugly reality, there’s no red pill you can swallow.
“Daddy, why do all the players have dark skin?” When my eldest daughter posed this question one football Saturday six years ago, she had no concept of race in mind […]
Marathon runners tend to forget how painful their experience was months after the race, provided that they had positive feelings toward the accomplishment.
Technology and old age are not typically in the same sentence, let alone discussion. However, the recent White House Conference on Aging highlighted the multiple opportunities to use technology as a force multiplier not just to live longer, but to live (and care) better.
Can the world’s most fantastic and speculative “theory of everything” candidate shed light on the Universe’s most invisible objects? “I just think too many nice things have happened in string […]
How one of the first tests of special relativity might lead to the greatest particle accelerator of all-time. “One feels that the past stays the way you left it, whereas […]
The pope laments the state of the environment, but he also decries the naive central environmentalist belief that humans are separate from nature and the villain in a simple myth of US (humans) against True Nature.
Constant touching and emotional warmth are essential to cognitive development, yet our educational and professional environments are skeptical, often for litigious reasons.
And are there independent ways to check? “Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art.” –Stanislaw Jerzy Lec Each week at Starts With A Bang, […]
Spoiler: NO, not a chance. Now find out why. “There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not even the best […]
They’re our best measurement of dark energy, even better than supernovae! “If you think this Universe is bad, you should see some of the others.”–Philip K. Dick Imagine you’re looking […]
And does it have its own type of charge, like all the other forces? “Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner […]
It’s the oldest, most distant light we’ve ever seen. But where, exactly, is it? “We are told to let our light shine, and if it does, we won’t need to […]
Could everything we’ve put together about science turn out to be wrong? “Revolutions are something you see only in retrospect.” –Alan Greenspan We’re always on the lookout for the next […]
These cosmic monsters make the LHC look like child’s play, and yet even they have their limits. “Energy is liberated matter, matter is energy waiting to happen.” –Bill Bryson You […]
If the question of life or death resides in the hands of a deity, then the death penalty is a sin against that god. Yet if it’s in our own hands, a woman deciding whether or not to bring a child forth should not be made to feel guilty, or worse, that she herself has sinned.