All posts tagged: Ethan

Ask Ethan: How long does it take planets to form?

Ask Ethan: How long does it take planets to form?

Published by Jenni Sidey

Here in our Universe, there were many profound steps that needed to occur in order for creatures like humans to be able to arise. We needed to forge heavy elements in previous generations of stars: elements that the Universe wasn’t born with, but that are required to enable molecules that can link up to form complex bonds and macroscopic structures. We needed enough of those elements so that when new stars formed, rocky planets could arise around them. And we needed enough time to pass so that life could not only arise, but thrive and evolve to give rise to highly differentiated organisms. Some 4.5 billion years after the formation of planet Earth, here we are, asking and answering many profound aspects of one of the grandest questions of all: how did we get here? Many variants of these grand questions often arise when we engage our curiosity. Where did we come from? What enabled our existence? What path did the Universe take to give rise to us? At just three years old, this week’s …

Hunger Games actor Ethan Jamieson arrested for alleged assault with intent to kill

Hunger Games actor Ethan Jamieson arrested for alleged assault with intent to kill

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Ethan Jamieson, an actor who appeared in The Hunger Games, has been arrested in Raleigh, North Carolina, on felony assault charges after allegedly firing a gun at a moving vehicle. Jamieson, 27, was arrested on 8 April and charged with three counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, according to court documents obtained by People magazine. The incident took place on 22 March, when officers from the Raleigh Police Department responded to reports of gunfire at approximately 9.52pm local time. A spokesperson for the Raleigh Police Department told Entertainment Weekly that “upon arrival, officers located the victim, who reported that an unknown suspect riding an e-bike had fired a shot at their vehicle while they were driving”. “Two additional occupants were inside the vehicle at the time of the incident. During the course of the investigation, detectives …

Ask Ethan: How did Artemis II break Apollo’s distance record?

Ask Ethan: How did Artemis II break Apollo’s distance record?

Published by Jenni Sidey

On April 6, 2026, humanity set an all-time record as part of the Artemis II mission: the distance record for how far a living human has ever traveled away from planet Earth. Traveling farther than any other humans in history, astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen reached a maximum distance of 406,773 km (252,757 miles), breaking the previous record set way back on April 15, 1970 by the Apollo 13 mission. For 56 years, the Apollo 13 record stood, as those astronauts reached a maximum distance of 400,171 km (248,655 miles): a record that has now been extended by an impressive 6602 km (4021 miles), greater than the radius of the Earth. But why did this happen? What enabled the Artemis II mission to surpass the Apollo-era distance record? That’s what Daniel Fleisher wants to know, writing in with the following inquiry: “NASA is telling the world that the Artemis mission has now traveled farther from Earth than any previous crewed space mission. I don’t doubt them, but what explains it? …

Ask Ethan: Do gravitational waves redshift like light does?

Ask Ethan: Do gravitational waves redshift like light does?

Published by Jenni Sidey

Here in our Universe, the light that gets emitted from objects isn’t necessarily the same as the light that arrives in either our eyes or our instruments. Not only are there many intervening effects that can alter a signal on the way — by interacting with fields, by passing through neutral and ionized matter, and by having to compete with sources of noise — but there are kinetic (motion-based) and gravitational (spacetime-based) effects that alter those signals while in transit as well. In particular, three main effects all can systematically shift light of any wavelength toward either redder or bluer wavelengths: the relative motion of the emitting source and the receiving observer, the changes in the gravitational field that the traveling signal experiences during its journey, and the effects of either expansion or contraction of the spacetime through which the signal travels. These three effects can lead to redshifts or blueshifts, depending on which direction they occur in, and it was long expected that they’d affect all waves, not just light waves, in a similar …

Ask Ethan: Does dark energy curve the Universe over time?

Ask Ethan: Does dark energy curve the Universe over time?

Published by Jenni Sidey

Whenever you have a Universe like ours — governed by general relativity and full of different types of energy — there are many different possible outcomes. Your Universe could tear itself apart, driving objects away from one another faster and faster, with no limit in sight: a Big Rip. Your Universe could expand forever, leading to an eventual cold, empty fate. Your Universe could exist in perfect harmony, where the expansion rate drops to zero, but never reverses course and recollapses. Or your Universe could reach a maximum size, begin contracting, and eventually meet its demise in a catastrophic Big Crunch. However, despite the wildly different possibilities that reflect your Universe’s ultimate cosmic future, there’s only one major factor that determines that fate: the sum total of all the different forms of energy present in your Universe, and how it compares to the initial expansion rate. For a long time, we thought that measuring the curvature of the Universe would reveal the answer to that question, but all of that changed with the discovery of …

Ask Ethan: Does nature need to obey laws at all?

Ask Ethan: Does nature need to obey laws at all?

Published by Jenni Sidey

Throughout the entire Universe, no matter where or when we look, we see an endless variety of structures that have formed throughout all different stages of cosmic evolution. With a tremendous number of planets, stars, galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and components of the great cosmic web, no two objects that we find are ever identical, although many features exhibit clear similarities. Underlying them all, the fundamental laws that they obey — from the quantum to the cosmic — never appear to change. From our cosmic backyard to galaxies found across the Universe: gravity works the same way, atoms exhibit the same quantum transitions, and the fundamental constants all remain unchanged throughout space and time. But why is the Universe this way? Is there anything forbidding different regions from having different properties, laws, and constants? Or anything forbidding them from changing over time? That’s this week’s inquiry from our Patreon supporter Jeff Bonwick, who wants to know: “Why does nature obey laws? It’s a relatively recent concept because most of what was observable to our ancestors …

Ethan Hawke Channeled His “Outlaw Spirit” in Old-School Prada at Oscars 2026

Ethan Hawke Channeled His “Outlaw Spirit” in Old-School Prada at Oscars 2026

Published by Sam Flores

Back in 2002, when a then 31-year-old Hawke was nominated for best supporting actor for Training Day, “I don’t think I gave a second’s thought to what I was wearing,” Hawke laughs. “The first time is otherworldly. You feel like you’re in The Hunger Games, because you watch it as a kid and all of a sudden you’re stepping into it. I got to do it with Denzel [Washington], which made it incredibly fun, and he won [best actor], so we all felt like we were part of history.” Hawke has earned four more nominations since then, including best supporting actor for Boyhood (2014), best-adapted-screenplay nods for Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013), and his first best-actor nod for Blue Moon at the 2026 Oscars. Four of those five nominations have their origin in Hawke’s more than 30-plus-year collaboration with filmmaker and friend Richard Linklater. Their partnership began in 1995 with the romantic drama Before Sunrise, starring Hawke and Julie Delpy as strangers who meet on a train and roam Vienna for the night. …

Who is Ethan Hawke’s partner Ryan Shawhughes? Everything to know about his producer wife

Who is Ethan Hawke’s partner Ryan Shawhughes? Everything to know about his producer wife

Published by Daniella Wilson

Ethan Hawke has built one of the most respected careers in Hollywood, earning multiple Academy Award nominations across decades for standout performances in films such as Training Day and Boyhood.  Now a frontrunner for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Blue Moon, Ethan Hawke, 55, is once again the talk of the town – with his wife Ryan Shawhughes Hawke, 43, leading the charge as the film’s producer. Beneath the accolades lies the couple’s most enduring collaboration: a marriage built on a high-stakes professional partnership and a mutual obsession with great storytelling. © Getty ImagesEthan and Ryan at the 83rd Annual Golden Globe Awards The couple’s professional and personal lives have long been intertwined. Ethan and Ryan first met when she was the nanny to his children from his previous marriage to Uma Thurman, although they were not romantically involved at the time.  The former couple share two children, Maya and Levon, and divorced in 2004 after several years together. Ethan and Ryan reconnected a year after his divorce and began dating. Uma, meanwhile, …

Meet Ethan Hawke’s 4 kids — including famous ones with ex Uma Thurman

Meet Ethan Hawke’s 4 kids — including famous ones with ex Uma Thurman

Published by Daniella Wilson

As an actor, author, and filmmaker, Ethan Hawke is certainly one of Hollywood’s most prolific (and absolutely underrated!). But as a dad, he takes the cake even more so. The star, 55, has been in the spotlight for over four decades, making his film debut at the age of just 14 in 1985’s Explorers, breaking into the mainstream just four years later with Dead Poets Society. He has since appeared in some of film’s most beloved franchises, indies and blockbusters, most recently receiving his fifth Academy Award nomination for his turn in Blue Moon. But 2026 is already turning out to be a big year for the actor as a dad. Take a walk down memory lane with HELLO! and meet Ethan Hawke’s four kids, shared with his two wives… © Fred Hayes/WireImage Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman In July 1998, Ethan and then wife Uma Thurman welcomed their first child, daughter Maya Ray Thurman-Hawke. Ethan and Uma were married from 1998 to 2005. And just like her parents, Maya is already one of Hollywood’s …

Ask Ethan: How dark will the Universe become?

Ask Ethan: How dark will the Universe become?

Published by Jenni Sidey

When it comes to the Universe and everything in it, only one thing is absolutely certain: everything that’s now living will someday die. This doesn’t just extend to living beings, but to all sources that use some sort of fuel and emit energy: eventually, as demanded by the laws of thermodynamics, all of that energy-liberating activity will cease. Stars will go dark, stellar remnants will fade away, and even black holes will evaporate. In the far future, our Universe will become something that’s virtually unrecognizable to us today, as our bright, star-and-galaxy-rich cosmos will transform into a sparse, dark landscape from which precious few signals could ever be detected. But there’s a whole lot that’s going to happen before we reach that funerary late-stage state. Given what we know today, can we say anything important about the path to that end state, and how dark the Universe, as well as our galaxy, will become over time? That’s what our regular reader James D wants to know, writing in to ask: “I was wondering if it’s …