Motion

Motion

Why Is M-Theory the Leading Candidate for Theory of Everything?

The mother of all string theories passes a litmus test that, so far, no other candidate theory of quantum gravity has been able to match.

Motion

The Large Hadron Collider Is Back and Ready to Hunt for Dark Matter

We spoke to the head of operations at CERN to find out what it takes to fire the collider back up after a brief hiatus for upgrades and maintenance.

Motion

Which Computational Universe Do We Live In?

Cryptographers want to know which of five possible worlds we inhabit, which will reveal whether truly secure cryptography is even possible. The post Which Computational Universe Do We Live In? first appeared in Quanta Magazine

Motion

An explosive result in particle physics could change everything

A tiny discrepancy in the weight of a fundamental particle called the W boson could blow open one of our major theories for understanding everything – if the measurement stands up to scrutiny

Motion

A weasel takes down the Large Hadron Collider

From NPR, "The Large Hadron Collider, a 17-mile superconducting machine designed to smash protons together at close to the speed of light, went offline overnight. Engineers investigating the mishap found the charred remains of a furry creature near a gnawed-through power cable." The shutdown comes as the LHC

Motion

Laniakea: Our Home Supercluster

Analysis of galaxies shows local supercluster to be 100 times larger than previously thought. The supercluster of galaxies that includes the Milky Way is 100 times bigger in volume and mass than previously thought, a team of astronomers says. They have mapped the enormous region and given it the name

Motion

Evidence for Cosmic Inflation Theory Bites the (Space) Dust

In online French documents briefly released and then removed last night and confirmed by the European Space Agency today, physicists have announced that last year’s much-publicized ‘discovery’ of gravitational waves embedded in the ‘echo’ of the Big Bang was a misstep. Preempting the official research paper that is planned

Motion

Turtles All the Way Down

I first read the phrase “Turtles All the Way Down” in a book by Stephen Hawking. According to the story, a big name scientist was giving a lecture on astronomy. After the lecture, an elderly lady came up and told the scientist that he had it all wrong. ‘The world

Motion

Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos

PBS posted the full episodes of The Fabric of the Cosmos. A four-hour series based on the book by renowned physicist and author Brian Greene, takes us to the frontiers of physics to see how scientists are piecing together the most complete picture yet of space, time, and the universe.

Motion

Pluto Rocks!

The International Astronomical Union, who apparently have a lot of time on their hands, have stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930. Pluto is a planet – get over it. CNN.com – Pluto gets the boot – Aug 24, 2006

Motion

The Realm of Gods and Ghosts

When I first saw Cosmos as a kid, nothing fascinated me more than Sagan’s explanation of 4 dimensions. He used the concept of a tesseract to help illustrate hyperdimensionality. The concept is absolutely riveting; the idea that there exists space around us that is unknowable because our cognitive apparatus

Motion

Cosmos 25th Anniversary

When Carl Sagan died, the world lost a treasure. After a two year battle with bone marrow cancer, Sagan died at age 62. His influence on my generation is hard to measure. As a kid, I remember Cosmos coming on PBS for the first time. I begged my parents to