All posts tagged: Physicist

This discovery is why Einstein was history’s greatest physicist

This discovery is why Einstein was history’s greatest physicist

Published by Jenni Sidey

Although many people struggle to name even one living scientist, practically everyone around the world knows who Einstein was. Perhaps the most famous person of the 20th century, Einstein revolutionized the sciences of physics and astronomy, making important contributions that taught us: the speed of light is the same for everyone, that energy and mass are equivalent, and related by the equation E = mc², that light and electrons are both quantized into discrete “packets” of energy, and that space and time are not absolute and objective, among many other discoveries that are still relevant today. Einstein’s work continues to endure on a number of other fronts as well, including on paradoxes in quantum entanglement (the EPR paradox), on connecting two well-separated points in spacetime through wormholes (Einstein-Rosen bridges), and in describing the statistics of integer-spin particles (Bose-Einstein statistics). That would have been enough for a remarkable career and a place among the all-time greats in physics. But the crown jewel of Einstein’s achievements was his revolutionary new theory of gravity — general relativity — …

Physicist proves famous ‘Star Trek’ combat strategy works

Physicist proves famous ‘Star Trek’ combat strategy works

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. The most impressive science fiction stories emphasize “science” over spectacle. The Star Trek franchise has featured plenty of examples since the original series premiered 60 years ago this month, but one of its most famous sci-fi moments may prove even more fascinating than fans realized. At Brazil’s Federal University of ABC, physicist Níckolas de Aguiar Alves determined that an early episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation demonstrates an aspect to the theory of relativity even better than its creators likely anticipated. Season One’s ninth episode, “The Battle,” introduces a bit of backstory to Jean-Luc Picard’s illustrious career in the Federation. Years before he became captain of the USS Enterprise, Picard oversaw a ship called the Stargazer when it came under fire from …

‘Most people don’t know we’ve set up a doomsday system’: physicist Laura Grego on satellites, nuclear weapons and the battle for our skies | Space

‘Most people don’t know we’ve set up a doomsday system’: physicist Laura Grego on satellites, nuclear weapons and the battle for our skies | Space

Published by Sam Flores

The last time I saw Laura Grego was in a tent in a baking field on the Welsh borders in May. The conversation on stage ranged from the dangers of space debris to how the law of the sea might pertain to outer space; from our sense of the sacred to our interplanetary futures. At one point Grego, a physicist, said intently, “People have to be aware of what is happening in space. Public knowledge has to catch up.” Three weeks later, SpaceX launched on the stock exchange, temporarily making Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire. So, I ask her now, what is it that we should all know? Well, she says, the average person’s experience of space is about to change. If, so far, that has been “looking at the stars and being full of wonder, full of connection with the universe”, perhaps noticing the occasional streaking object that was not a shooting star, now “there are plans for tens of thousands more satellites, which would really change your relationship with what you see …

This physicist is hunting for the biggest black hole in the universe

This physicist is hunting for the biggest black hole in the universe

Published by skeptic

No black hole could ever be described as small. Even the most diminutive are many times the mass of the sun. But there is a now talk of a variety that throws shade on all others: the stupendously large black holes, otherwise known as SLABs. These dark monsters could be as massive as whole galaxies or even bigger. The idea of SLABs first cropped up a few years ago, partly as a by-product of astronomers’ desperation to unmask dark matter, the mysterious substance that makes up 85 per cent of all matter in the universe. Since then, they have looked for SLABs by trying to detect the light they would emit or the way they would bend space-time. But earlier this year, astronomer Brian Lacki at the Breakthrough Listen project based at the University of Oxford proposed another way to detect SLABs, which involves searching for the shadows they cast on the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the light released just after the big bang that now suffuses the whole universe. New Scientist spoke with Lacki …

Versions of You in Other Universes May Be Subtly Affecting Your Destiny, Oxford Physicist Says

Versions of You in Other Universes May Be Subtly Affecting Your Destiny, Oxford Physicist Says

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech You may think you’re the protagonist of your own story. According to Oxford physicist Vlatko Vedral, however, you’re more like a puppet — whose strings are being pulled into a million parallel universes at any given time. As Vedral argues in a recent issue of Popular Mechanics, the pop-sci version of the “observer effect” — where the act of observation or measurement affects a system — gets the cause-and-effect backward. The typical story goes something like this: quantum objects hang out in multiple states at once, until some observer glances over. At this point, the multiple states collapse and only one is left, an assumption that can lead various woo-woo interpretations, like that we create reality simply by observing it. Physics, Verdal says, does not support that idea. That collapse effect isn’t a special power of human consciousness, but rather a fact of physics that says interactions — any interaction — forces a quantum system to commit to …

Alien civilizations have not visited Earth and never will, physicist claims

Alien civilizations have not visited Earth and never will, physicist claims

Published by Jenni Sidey

“There is a silence in the night sky that has bothered me for as long as I can remember.” That line, attributed to Richard Feynman, lands because it gets at a simple, stubborn feeling. The sky looks full. Stars crowd the darkness. It seems reasonable to think someone else should be out there, and close enough to find. Yet the deeper physicists look into the laws that govern the universe, the more that silence starts to seem less like a cosmic riddle and more like a built-in feature of reality. Human intuition is not much help. It developed for ordinary distances, daily motion, and short-term survival. It did not develop for light years, relativistic speeds, or timescales longer than the history of civilization. As Feynman puts it, “When you take that human intuition and apply it to the scale of the universe, it doesn’t just fail. It snaps.” That mismatch sits at the center of the story. Five barriers shape the quiet: distance, the speed of light, propulsion, biology, and time. Taken together, they form …

Physicist Proposes Dark Matter Is Made of Black Holes That Survived Dead Universes

Physicist Proposes Dark Matter Is Made of Black Holes That Survived Dead Universes

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Here’s a fun dark matter solution. The invisible and as yet hypothetical substance could be made of “relic” black holes that survived the deaths of previous universes. This idea is explored as part of a new study published in the journal Physical Review D, which the lead author Enrique Gaztanaga breaks down in an essay for The Conversation. It hinges on two key concepts: the “Big Bounce,” a controversial idea that the Big Bang was part of an endless cycle in which the universe expands and contracts and expands again; and so-called primordial black holes. “The universe may not have begun once, but may have rebounded,” Gaztanaga wrote. “And the dark structures shaping galaxies today could be relics from a time before the Big Bang.” Black holes as a dark matter candidate have a powerful allure. Both are largely invisible but still massive, and pinning the blame on black holes means we don’t have to search for undiscovered …

A physicist explains what the Kardashev scale gets wrong

A physicist explains what the Kardashev scale gets wrong

Published by Jenni Sidey

In the mid-20th century, while Carl Sagan pioneered the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) in the U.S., eminent Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev did the same in the Soviet Union, which was, at the time, the other great scientific superpower.  From that vantage point, he proposed using the energy demands of an alien civilization as a way to categorize its place on the ladder of technological advancement. This framework became known as the Kardashev scale, and it is one of the oldest and most visionary ideas in SETI, as well as a fixture of science fiction.  It is also profoundly incomplete — and if we want to advance our own civilization, we need to take the whole picture into account. The energy ladder Kardashev’s thinking about advanced alien civilizations was grounded in fundamental physics: No matter how advanced a civilization might become, it would still need energy to power its technology.  The Kardashev scale not only gave scientists a new framework for thinking about extraterrestrials, but also a new way to think about humanity.  Kardashev’s proposal …

Nobel Physicist Predicts ‘End-Date’ For Modern Civilization

Nobel Physicist Predicts ‘End-Date’ For Modern Civilization

Published by Jenni Sidey

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news, Nobel Prize-winning physicist David Gross has provided a sobering timeline for the potential end of modern civilisation, citing the escalating risks of nuclear war. The 2004 Nobel laureate estimates that humanity may have roughly 35 years remaining before facing existential catastrophe from nuclear conflict. In an interview, Gross detailed his assessment based on probability calculations similar to radioactive half-life models. He noted that after the Cold War, estimates put the annual chance of nuclear war at one percent. However, he believes the figure is now closer to two percent. Chilling warning from Nobel physicist as date is set for humanity’s final destruction https://t.co/WKhFHWcIs3 — Daily Mail US (@Daily_MailUS) April 20, 2026 “Even after the Cold War ended, when we had strategic arms control treaties, all of which have disappeared, there were estimates that there was a one percent chance of nuclear war every year,” Gross said. He continued, “I feel it’s not a rigorous estimate that the chances are more likely two percent. So that’s a one-in-50 chance every year. …

Mississippi State physicist creates neutron star reaction in the lab

Mississippi State physicist creates neutron star reaction in the lab

Published by Jenni Sidey

For years, physicists have wondered whether one unstable form of copper might act like a traffic jam inside some of the most violent explosions in the universe. That question matters because those explosions, called Type-I X-ray bursts, are part of the cosmic machinery that helps build heavier elements. Hydrogen and helium dominated the early universe. Much of what came later, including the oxygen in the air and the iron deep inside Earth, had to be forged in stars and stellar blasts. Now, a team led by Mississippi State physicist Jaspreet Randhawa has directly measured a key nuclear reaction tied to that process. The result suggests the suspected slowdown is much weaker than scientists feared. Therefore, heavier elements have a clearer path to form during explosive bursts on neutron stars. “The universe began almost entirely with hydrogen and helium,” Randhawa said. “Every heavier element, from the oxygen we breathe to the iron in Earth’s core, was forged later in stars and stellar explosions. By identifying how stellar explosions build heavier elements, scientists gain a clearer picture …