A federal judge in the US has allowed a whistleblower lawsuit to go forward, in which a former official of the National Institutes of Health accuses a Harvard professor of repurposing research grants and falsely claiming he had met his objectives. The allegations are unproven. But the reason this case matters is that everyone in academia knows this kind of thing happens all the time, and until
In Einstein's theory of general relativity, gravity is always attractive. But according to a new paper, quantum mechanics offers a loophole that can create antigravity. And not only this, if it was measurable that would prove that gravity has quantum properties. How does this work and how can repulsive gravity be compatible with the laws of physics that we know and like? Let's take a look.
For over half a century, people taking the psychedelic drug DMT have reported meeting alien beings. Now a scientist says these aliens might be real, and that he has the mathematics to prove it. Forget string theory and extra dimensions; here come aliens and psychedelics. Let's take a look.
About 25 years ago, astrophysicists noticed that the universe’s expansion is accelerating. To account for this observation, physicists came up with a new type of energy – called dark energy – which supposedly makes up more than 75% of the universe, and also has negative pressure. In a new paper, mathematicians claim that dark energy isn’t needed to explain that accelerating expansion, and
The electric car revolution was supposed to be inevitable. But over the past six months it's begun to look shaky. The clearest warning sign isn't sales figures, it's what carmakers are doing with their own money: writing off huge losses, scaling back their plans, and cancelling battery projects. So what's really happening to electric car demand, and is the slowdown temporary? Let's take a look.
You might think that black holes suck in light without letting it escape, but they actually concentrate light in the photon sphere which surrounds their horizon. In a recent paper, researchers created a new type of laser which concentrates light using a technique similar to those found in the photon sphere. Let’s take a look.
One of the biggest limitations of quantum quantum computing is the “no cloning” theorem, which says you cannot copy a quantum state without destroying the original. If you could copy quantum states without harming the original, much of the error-correcting complications in quantum computing could be avoided. Luckily, in a recent paper, physicists have demonstrated that there’s a way around the “
A new, computer-based calculation shows that our solar system used to have 5 or 6, rather than 4 gas giants. It seems that, billions of years ago, we lost two planets due to an instability that probably also tilted Uranus’s axis and scrambled up its moons. Let’s have a look.
Recently, a pair of researchers made a massive breakthrough in the foundations of physics. In their paper, they describe how gravity is an emergent property. More specifically, they say that the origin of gravity is entropy. And not just any entropy, but the entropy of quantum fields. How big is this really? Let’s take a look.
Physicists have been arguing about dark matter for almost a century, and now, after all this time, their most favourite evidence for dark matter – the Bullet Cluster – disappeared. This isn’t just an interesting development from a scientific perspective, it is also a good illustration for what is going wrong in this research area. I have a brief summary.
Quantum computing is supposed to be one of the most exciting new technologies that humanity is working on, with companies promising it can be used in chemistry, material science, logistics, and finance. Over the years, those use cases have been slowly eroded, but investment in quantum tech has only increased. Why? Let’s take a look.
Since the early days of quantum physics, some scientists have believed that there’s a link between quantum mechanics and consciousness. While most researchers don’t think this idea holds water, a few have published papers about how phosphate molecules in the brain could link consciousness to quantum physics. Let’s take a look.
In 2011, three physicists won the Nobel Prize for showing that the expansion of the universe speeds up, which is usually attributed to aa mysterious type of energy called “dark energy”. But last year, though, a different group published research showing that universal expansion isn’t actually getting faster. Since then, the two groups have engaged in a whole bunch of back-and-forth refuting each
As AI continues to improve its reasoning abilities, mathematicians are increasingly worried about the computer algorithms replacing them. In late May, those fears got even worse when OpenAI revealed that one of its general-purpose reasoning models had written a proof solving a math problem that’s sat unsolved for more than 80 years. But should they actually be worried? Let’s take a look.
One of the most popular ideas in physics right now is something named “ER = EPR.” This theory has it that entangled particles are actually linked by tiny, tiny wormholes. Recently, a group of physicists tested the idea – let’s take a look at their findings.
Artificial Intelligence is beginning to improve itself. In today's video I have a summary of recent events. Are we ready for the intelligence explosion? I think not.
Physicists believe that 80% of the matter in the universe is made of ‘dark matter’ that we can’t see. But despite decades of work, they haven’t been able to confirm that this matter really exists. In the past years, physicists have been rethinking the dark matter idea… but not in the way you might expect. Let’s take a look.
Login
