Lifeboat Foundation

We all feel the forward march of time, but the laws of physics tell us it is an illusion. A radical rethink is needed, argues theoretical physicist Lee Smolin.

Physicists at MIT have for the first time calculated the pressure distribution inside a proton. One incredible finding by the researchers is that the core of a proton generates pressures greater than what’s found inside a neutron star. That discovery is so incredible because a neutron star is among the densest known objects in the universe.

A new map of the night sky using the Low Frequency Array @LOFAR telescope charts hundreds of thousands of previously unknown galaxies.

The international team behind the unprecedented space survey said their discovery literally shed new light on some of the Universe’s deepest secrets, including the physics of black holes and how clusters of galaxies evolve.

According to most astrophysicists, once you enter a black hole, that’s it for you: gravity will drag you to the singularity — a one-dimensional infinitely small space containing a huge mass — at the speed of light. Then, the black hole will ‘spaghettify you”. Nice.

However, a new study from Berkley University theorises not only that humans could survive going into a black hole, but that their past could be erased, giving way to “infinite futures”.

Physicist Peter Hintz argues that if a human traveller entered a “relatively benign” black hole, they might be able to shed the natural laws of physics — and survive.

Continue reading “There’s a black hole that could erase your past and let you live out infinite futures, study suggests” »

Physicists can’t agree.

Physicists define black holes according to their field’s needs.

An invisible force is having an effect on our Universe. We can’t see it, and we can’t detect it — but we can observe how it interacts gravitationally with the things we can see and detect, such as light.

Now an international team of astronomers has used one of the world’s most powerful telescopes to analyse that effect across 10 million galaxies in the context of Einstein’s general relativity. The result? The most comprehensive map of dark matter across the history of the Universe to date.

It has yet to complete peer-review, but the map has suggested something unexpected — that dark matter structures might be evolving more slowly than previously predicted.

Continue reading “New Map of Dark Matter Spanning 10 Million Galaxies Hints at a Flaw in Our Physics” »

In a finding that runs counter to a common assumption in physics, researchers at the University of Michigan ran a light emitting diode (LED) with electrodes reversed in order to cool another device mere nanometers away.

The approach could lead to new solid-state cooling technology for future microprocessors, which will have so many transistors packed into a small space that current methods can’t remove heat quickly enough.

“We have demonstrated a second method for using photons to cool devices,” said Pramod Reddy, who co-led the work with Edgar Meyhofer, both professors of mechanical engineering.

What they found was surprising. The new map, published on the preprint server arXiv, suggests that the huge structure of dark matter in the universe formed more slowly that previously believed — results that “appear to challenge current understanding of the fundamental laws of physics,” according to the press release.

Road Ahead

But before physicists throw out the rulebook, Hikage cautioned that the new map needs to be corroborated.

This strange type of magnetism can form rapidly — and disappear just as quickly.