BREAKING NEWS
Tweets by @FQXi
George Lemaître Prize
Jun 21, 2019
FQXi's George Ellis of the University of Cape Town has received the George Lemaître Award from UCLouvain for contributions to the development and dissemination of knowledge in the fields of astronomy, astrophysics, geophysics or space research. Congratulations!
APS Innovator
May 11, 2019
Congrats to FQXi's Catalina Oana Curceanu, senior researcher at the National Laboratory of Frascati (LNF), who has received a Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Fundamental Physics Innovation Award from the American Physical Society. More about the winners here.
Physics-Art Flipbook
Feb 4, 2019
Quantum physicist Paul Knott and artist Joseph Namara Hollis have teamed up to create a charming illustrated book for the public investigating Our Quantum Reality, which you can read for free. Learn more about the FQXi-funded outreach project on the blog.
NEW IN BLOGS
Black Hole Photographed for the First Time: EHT...
By ZEEYA MERALI
Updated:
Scientists have obtained the first image of a black hole, using Event Horizon Telescope observations of the center of the galaxy M87. The image shows a bright ring formed as light bends in the intense gravity around a black hole that...
Cosmological Koans
By ANTHONY AGUIRRE
A couple of months ago my book Cosmological Koans was released. Since I started this book before Max and I started FQXi in 2006, FQXI and the foundational questions community has obviously played a huge role in my thinking and what in the book. So...
Cosmic Dawn, Parallel Observers, and a Science...
By ZEEYA MERALI
This month’s podcast features the exciting discovery of signs of the first stars made by astronomers using the EDGES experiment, in Western Australia (right), published in Nature, in February. It’s long been predicted that they should see...
FORUM UPDATES
High Energy Physics
New Nuclear "Magic Number"
By ZEEYA MERALI
Earlier this month, D. Steppenbeck and colleagues published a paper in Nature on "Evidence for a new nuclear 'magic number' from the level structure of 54Ca. Leo Vuyk requested that we open a new forum thread on this topic -- thank you...
Ultimate Reality
Alternative Models of Reality
By ZEEYA MERALI
If you have an unconventional, alternative model of reality, then this is the place to discuss it. (This is for contributors who have preliminary ideas and would like feedback, but do not have an academic paper or arXiv preprint and have not given a...
High Energy Physics
Santa Barbara Gravity Workshop - online...
By STEVEN GIDDINGS
Online proceedings for the 2nd Santa Barbara Gravity Workshop are now available at http://web.physics.ucsb.edu/~giddings/sbgw2/, and include both slides/blackboard photos and audio. This was a very stimulating workshop focussed on foundational...
Black Hole Photographed for the First Time: EHT...
By ZEEYA MERALI
Updated:
Scientists have obtained the first image of a black hole, using Event Horizon Telescope observations of the center of the galaxy M87. The image shows a bright ring formed as light bends in the intense gravity around a black hole that...
Cosmological Koans
By ANTHONY AGUIRRE
A couple of months ago my book Cosmological Koans was released. Since I started this book before Max and I started FQXi in 2006, FQXI and the foundational questions community has obviously played a huge role in my thinking and what in the book. So...
Cosmic Dawn, Parallel Observers, and a Science...
By ZEEYA MERALI
This month’s podcast features the exciting discovery of signs of the first stars made by astronomers using the EDGES experiment, in Western Australia (right), published in Nature, in February. It’s long been predicted that they should see...
NEW PODCAST EPISODES
2018 Year in Physics Review Part 2: We conclude our countdown of the top physics stories of the year, as chosen by Ian Durham.
2018 Year in Physics Review Part 1: We begin our countdown of the top physics stories of the year, as chosen by Ian Durham.
Superhuman: In this special edition, evolutionary biologist Rowan Hooper discusses his new book, which examines the extremes of mental and physical ability. He discusses encounters with some of the world's cleverest people, investigates the role of genetics in intelligence, memory, drive and focus, and describes people whose immense resilience has seen them come through terrible adversity. Hooper also describes lessons we can take from human evolution when programming AI.
Featured Videos:
|
Dagomir Kaszlikowski |
|
"One Physics To Rule Them All (This Is Physics, part 1)" Marc Séguin |
|
Xiangjun Shi |
FORUM UPDATES
High Energy Physics
New Nuclear "Magic Number"
By ZEEYA MERALI
Earlier this month, D. Steppenbeck and colleagues published a paper in Nature on "Evidence for a new nuclear 'magic number' from the level structure of 54Ca. Leo Vuyk requested that we open a new forum thread on this topic -- thank you...
Ultimate Reality
Alternative Models of Reality
By ZEEYA MERALI
If you have an unconventional, alternative model of reality, then this is the place to discuss it. (This is for contributors who have preliminary ideas and would like feedback, but do not have an academic paper or arXiv preprint and have not given a...
High Energy Physics
Santa Barbara Gravity Workshop - online...
By STEVEN GIDDINGS
Online proceedings for the 2nd Santa Barbara Gravity Workshop are now available at http://web.physics.ucsb.edu/~giddings/sbgw2/, and include both slides/blackboard photos and audio. This was a very stimulating workshop focussed on foundational...
NEW ARTICLES
First Things First: The Physics of Causality
By KATE BECKER • Jul 16, 2019
Why do we remember the past and not the future? Untangling the connections between cause and effect, choice, and entropy.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(8 posts)
Can Time Be Saved From Physics?
By JOHN FARRELL • Apr 27, 2019
Philosophers, physicists and neuroscientists discuss how our sense of time’s flow might arise through our interactions with external stimuli—despite suggestions from Einstein's relativity that our perception of the passage of time is an illusion.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(204 posts)
Thermo-Demonics
By M. MITCHELL WALDROP • Mar 4, 2019
A devilish new framework of thermodynamics that focuses on how we observe information could help illuminate our understanding of probability and rewrite quantum theory.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(90 posts)
Gravity's Residue
By GEORGE MUSSER • Feb 15, 2019
An unusual approach to unifying the laws of physics could solve Hawking's black-hole information paradox—and its predicted gravitational "memory effect" could be picked up by LIGO.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(11 posts)
Could Mind Forge the Universe?
By SOPHIE HEBDEN • Jan 18, 2019
Objective reality, and the laws of physics themselves, emerge from our observations, according to a new framework that turns what we think of as fundamental on its head.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(56 posts)
Dissolving Quantum Paradoxes
By KATE BECKER • Aug 31, 2018
The impossibility of building a perfect clock could help explain away microscale weirdness.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(177 posts)
Constructing a Theory of Life
By MIRIAM FRANKEL • Jul 31, 2018
An all-encompassing framework of physics could help to explain the evolution of consciousness, intelligence, and free will.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(183 posts)
Usurping Quantum Theory
By COLIN STUART • Jun 28, 2018
The search is on for a fundamental framework that allows for even stranger links between particles than quantum theory—which could lead us to a theory of everything.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(15 posts)
Fuzzballs v Black Holes
By SOPHIE HEBDEN • May 11, 2018
A radical theory replaces the cosmic crunchers with fuzzy quantum spheres, potentially solving the black-hole information paradox and explaining away the Big Bang and the origin of time.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(28 posts)
Whose Physics Is It Anyway? Q&A with Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
By NICOLA JONES • Apr 20, 2018
Why physics and astronomy communities must take diversity issues seriously in order to do good science.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(22 posts)
Why Time Might Not Be an Illusion
By NICOLA JONES • Feb 28, 2018
Einstein’s relativity pushes physicists towards a picture of the universe as a block, in which the past, present, and future all exist on the same footing; but maybe that shift in thinking has gone too far.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(155 posts)
The Complexity Conundrum
By M. MITCHELL WALDROP • Dec 5, 2017
Resolving the black hole firewall paradox—by calculating what a real astronaut would compute at the black hole's edge.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(56 posts)
Quantum Dream Time
By KATE BECKER • Nov 8, 2017
Defining a ‘quantum clock’ and a 'quantum ruler' could help those attempting to unify physics—and solve the mystery of vanishing time.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(83 posts)
First Things First: The Physics of Causality
By KATE BECKER • Jul 16, 2019
Why do we remember the past and not the future? Untangling the connections between cause and effect, choice, and entropy.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(8 posts)
Can Time Be Saved From Physics?
By JOHN FARRELL • Apr 27, 2019
Philosophers, physicists and neuroscientists discuss how our sense of time’s flow might arise through our interactions with external stimuli—despite suggestions from Einstein's relativity that our perception of the passage of time is an illusion.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(204 posts)
Thermo-Demonics
By M. MITCHELL WALDROP • Mar 4, 2019
A devilish new framework of thermodynamics that focuses on how we observe information could help illuminate our understanding of probability and rewrite quantum theory.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(90 posts)
Gravity's Residue
By GEORGE MUSSER • Feb 15, 2019
An unusual approach to unifying the laws of physics could solve Hawking's black-hole information paradox—and its predicted gravitational "memory effect" could be picked up by LIGO.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(11 posts)
Could Mind Forge the Universe?
By SOPHIE HEBDEN • Jan 18, 2019
Objective reality, and the laws of physics themselves, emerge from our observations, according to a new framework that turns what we think of as fundamental on its head.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(56 posts)
Dissolving Quantum Paradoxes
By KATE BECKER • Aug 31, 2018
The impossibility of building a perfect clock could help explain away microscale weirdness.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(177 posts)
Constructing a Theory of Life
By MIRIAM FRANKEL • Jul 31, 2018
An all-encompassing framework of physics could help to explain the evolution of consciousness, intelligence, and free will.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(183 posts)
Usurping Quantum Theory
By COLIN STUART • Jun 28, 2018
The search is on for a fundamental framework that allows for even stranger links between particles than quantum theory—which could lead us to a theory of everything.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(15 posts)
Fuzzballs v Black Holes
By SOPHIE HEBDEN • May 11, 2018
A radical theory replaces the cosmic crunchers with fuzzy quantum spheres, potentially solving the black-hole information paradox and explaining away the Big Bang and the origin of time.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(28 posts)
Whose Physics Is It Anyway? Q&A with Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
By NICOLA JONES • Apr 20, 2018
Why physics and astronomy communities must take diversity issues seriously in order to do good science.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(22 posts)
Why Time Might Not Be an Illusion
By NICOLA JONES • Feb 28, 2018
Einstein’s relativity pushes physicists towards a picture of the universe as a block, in which the past, present, and future all exist on the same footing; but maybe that shift in thinking has gone too far.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(155 posts)
The Complexity Conundrum
By M. MITCHELL WALDROP • Dec 5, 2017
Resolving the black hole firewall paradox—by calculating what a real astronaut would compute at the black hole's edge.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(56 posts)
Quantum Dream Time
By KATE BECKER • Nov 8, 2017
Defining a ‘quantum clock’ and a 'quantum ruler' could help those attempting to unify physics—and solve the mystery of vanishing time.
Read article
Discuss this article in the FQXi Community Forum
(83 posts)