The just-world fallacy in action.
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If you took all the energy out of something, you’d reach absolute zero, the coldest temperature of all. But is there a highest temperature? “Nothing is lost… Everything is transformed.” […]
Hawking’s greatest achievement is also the greatest source of misunderstanding. “Maybe that is our mistake: maybe there are no particle positions and velocities, but only waves. It is just that […]
Compared to a human lifetime, the Universe is ancient.But even a single year holds important changes. “We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we […]
The most powerful telescope in history will never see the farthest galaxy. “No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded […]
A leftover glow unlike any other — of neutrinos — has finally been seen. “When you see how fragile and delicate life can be, all else fades into the background.” –Jenna Morasca Seventy years […]
And it couldn’t have done it without the heat from our world. “Cheap little rhymesA cheap little tuneAre sometimes as dangerousAs a sliver of the moon.” –Langston Hughes If you’ve ever […]
After hydrogen and helium, the periodic table is full of surprises. “The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.” –Harlan Ellison One of the most remarkable […]
How does he deliver presents to hundreds of millions of households in just one night? With physics, of course! “Our family was too strange and weird for even Santa Claus to […]
So far, the White House has promised to allow 10,000 Syrians into the country, but that’s a far cry from Turkey’s already 2 million.
NASA’s great observatories combine to give us a unique view of a sight no human ever saw the first time around. “And no one showed us to the landAnd no […]
Mars used to be a warm, wet world, filled with oceans, rivers, and maybe even life. Here’s what happened. “Studying whether there’s life on Mars or studying how the universe […]
Dr. Christopher Watson explains the barriers to finding another haven for human life.
The simple sights of sunrises and sunsets, spectacularly but seldom seem. “Lost — yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, […]
A galaxy cluster that’s been actively devouring matter for hundreds of millions of years blows all the records away. “The world exploded into billions of atoms, and when it rearranged […]
With the full suite of evidence, there’s no escaping dark matter. “A cosmic mystery of immense proportions, once seemingly on the verge of solution, has deepened and left astronomers and […]
President Barack Obama, charismatic as he is, has stumbled in the past when taking to new media to engage American citizens. He’s much better at writing letters than answering questions on Reddit.
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 […]
“A single ray of light from a distant star falling upon the eye of a tyrant in bygone times may have altered the course of his life, may have changed the destiny of nations, may have transformed the surface of the globe, so intricate, so inconceivably complex are the processes in Nature.” — Nikola Tesla, 1893
Yesterday was an epic day: NASA’s Kepler mission announced the discovery of what they called “the most Earth-like planet ever,” the smallest planet ever found that orbits a Sun-like star […]
Experts say hovering parents set our kids up for failure — but why is that, and what can we do to change?
John Lennon liked to joke that Yoko Ono was “the world’s most famous unknown artist.” Before she infamously “broke up the Beatles” (but not really), Ono built an internationally recognized career as an artist in the developing fields of Conceptual art, experimental film, and performance art. Unfairly famous then and now for all the wrong reasons, Ono’s long fought in her own humorously sly way for recognition, beginning with her self-staged 1971 “show” Museum of Modern (F)art, a performance piece in which she dreamed of a one-woman exhibition of her work at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Now, more than 40 years later, the MoMA makes that dream come true with the exhibition Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960–1971. Better late than never, this exhibition of the pre-Lennon and early-Lennon Ono establishes her not just as the world’s most famous unknown artist, but the most unfairly unknown one, too.
An interesting point in case are the twin maps of Africa shown here, one of the spread of Islam, the other the spread of AIDS. Beware of the map that is too straightforward and simple.
It’s not breaking news that the universe is slowly dying. It is significant that scientists have been able to finally measure the degree to which it’s dying. Let’s just say you should push up any appointments you might have 100 billion years from now.
Obscured by our galactic plane, this once-unknown sight of the southern skies — Westerlund 2 — may house the Milky Way’s next supernova! “The wonder is, not that the field of the stars is […]
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 […]
No matter how great your expertise, new discoveries await for the curious. “There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and […]
The Seattle Department of Transportation has proposed a $3 billion project that would revamp city roads and improve gridlock. Central to the plan is an interesting twist: no new accommodations are to be made for auto traffic.
These findings suggest that “across the American life course, there is a large amount of income volatility.”
And if so, how does Einstein’s relativity — both special and general — cope? “If everything seems under control, you’re not going fast enough.” -Mario Andretti The end of the week means another dip […]