Anyone announcing the successful sale of tourist trips around the moon would attract ridicule and laughter. Unless your name is Elon Musk. In that case the announcement amounts to nothing more than a logical and rather modest step towards Musk's promise of getting a million people to live on Mars.
In the previous blog post we familiarized ourselves with a most remarkable device. A device resulting from 20th century science: Albert's chest of drawers. This chest, although presented as a gedanken gadget, is real in the sense that devices with the same characteristics have been built, although none of these take the actual shape of a chest of drawers. In fact, the devices built so far are way smaller in size. They are based not on drawers, but on photons or sub-microscopic particles.
Quantum physics describes a universe that is profoundly mysterious. Einstein, arguably the most revolutionary thinker of modern times, struggled greatly with quantum theory. This groundbreaking new perspective, ironically triggered by his own early work, simply didn't fit his views on physical reality. Would quantum theory not have been as successful as it was, Einstein could have brushed it aside. But from the early days, the theory was immensely successful. And no one around him seemed to have any problems with it. Einstein must have felt lonely at times, but he was convinced enough in the power of his own reasoning to persist in his skepticism towards quantum physics.
If on occasions you dream about owning the world's largest particle smasher, I have good news for you. The Superconducting Super Collider is for sale "at a significant discount". However, to stand a chance in beating the LHC in the race for the Higgs, you better act quickly. And uhh... did I tell you the sale is a 'BYOB' (bring your own beam) deal?
Supernovas are by far the most violent phenomena in the universe. Would the full energy released in a supernova explosion be directed to earth, the result would be the ultimate carpet bombing. Carpet bombing in full 3D that is. Every single gram of earth, down to its very core, would receive the destructive power of more than a hundred Hiroshima bombs. Apophis, Elinin, Nibiru, any other possible, highly improbable, or impossible cosmic doomsday scenario pales into insignificance compared to a supernova armageddon.
It is approaching fast. And it is big. The next NEO (Near-Earth Object) encounter that is. This Tuesday, a 400 m (1,300 ft) diameter rock, known as 2005 YU55, will pass by earth at a distance that is from astronomical perspective truly minuscule: 0.00217 AU. In a solar system that stretches more than 80 AU in diameter, that is less than a hair width. Such close encounters for objects of this size are expected to occur no more than a few times per century. Earth, keep starboard - we are going to pass!
You are in a game with one hundred other players. They don't know you, you don't know them, and you can not communicate with any of them. The game is called 'even/odd(s)' and is explained to you as follows:"You have the choice between two selections: 'even' or 'odd'. The hundred other contestants face the same choice. You all make your choice simultaneously. If the total group of players select an even number of 'evens' and an odd number of 'odds', those who selected 'odd' will receive $3, and those who selected 'even' will receive $4. However, if the result amounts to an odd number of 'evens' and an even number of 'odds', no-one will receive a penny. Now go ahead and make a choice!"What is your choice?
So what is the deal with this 'cosmic speed limit'? Is it really unthinkable that neutrinos move faster than light?
Do you believe neutrinos can exceed the universal speed limit of 299792.458 km/s? Be careful before you respond with "yes". Rumor has it that the set of all people who believe superluminal speeds have indeed been observed in the OPERA experiment is disjoint from the set of all people who have a deep understanding of relativity. (Which doesn't imply that any person unconvinced by the OPERA results necessarily understands relativity.) Has the universal speed limit been violated?
Last time I blogged, I discussed entropic gravity and ended with the prediction that we will witness some more opposing and supportive views on entropic gravity before the dust will settle on the subject. The moment I wrote these words, a critical article on Verlinde's entropic gravity idea appeared, soon followed by a an article that brushes aside all earlier entropic gravity criticism based on neutron experiments.
Entropic gravity is back in the news. Various science blogs again carry headlines dealing with entropic gravity. This time round, the reports are less favorable towards the idea of gravity being entropic, with headlines like Experiments Show Gravity Is Not an Emergent Phenomenon screaming for attention.Sounds like a death stab to Erik Verlinde's brainchild, right?
Use your browser's back button and stop reading when you can't handle speculations out of a hammock.Still reading? Ok, I have warned you. Brace yourself. I am going to argue against what many believe to be the most fundamental law of physics. A sacrosanct law. A law that you experience everyday and that is so obviously true that no one should meddle with it. You all know this law. It's the law referred to as 'the second'. The second law of thermodynamics.
Equations don't sell. Pop science editors tell us that each equation added to a book halves its sales figure. If this is true, Sir Roger Penrose's Cycles of Time, which was recently released in the US, and which I can testify sold at least one copy, would have sold by the billions if only the editor would have scrapped half of the equations.
