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Philosophy
Examine life’s biggest questions, from ethics to existence, with curiosity and critical thinking.
It could evolve, strengthen, decay, or not be alone. Our known Universe contains matter, radiation, and dark energy. While matter (both normal and dark) and radiation become less dense as […]
Going to smaller and smaller distance scales reveals more fundamental views of nature, which means if we can understand and describe the smallest scales, we can build our way to […]
The raw ingredients just weren’t there. Thankfully, their predecessors were. Here on Earth, our planet practically overflows with life. After more than 4 billion years, life has spread to practically […]
If we succeed in contacting them, will that seal humanity’s doom? One of the most wondrous questions of all concerns our place in the Universe. After 13.8 billion years of […]
Only the best physical theories outlast the minds that invented them. Throughout the 20th century, a number of discoveries revolutionized our Universe. The discovery of the interior structure of atoms as […]
Ignoring a scientific truth doesn’t change it, even when the consequences are deadly. “If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it, too?” Many of us, as children, […]
Hidden variables aren’t ruled out, but they can’t get rid of quantum weirdness. Ever since the discovery of the bizarre behavior of quantum systems, we’ve been forced to reckon with […]
When you view your right hand in a mirror, it appears as a left hand. Writing is reversed, as is the direction of any spinning object: clockwise becomes counterclockwise and […]
All scientific theories, at some level, are wrong. That’s why consensus is so vital. There are two important and common words that, when used scientifically, have a very different meaning than […]
Filaments, hundreds of millions of light-years long, were just caught spinning. In our own cosmic backyard, everything we see spins, rotates, and revolves in some fashion or other. Our planet […]
Three of our dimensions are spatial and one is temporal, but could there be more? From any point in space, you are free to move in any direction you choose. No […]
It’s a wild idea, but there’s a way to test it. No matter how far we look out in the Universe, there’s always more “Universe” to see. Even at the extreme […]
Has all this happened before, and will all this happen once again? There are only a few questions, when we ask them, that force us to reckon with the fundamental nature […]
Even the ones hunting for aliens aren’t excited. Here’s the reason why. In this world, there are very few issues more polarizing than the notion of aliens. For as long as […]
Find out the truth for yourself. If this past year has shown us anything, it’s how thoroughly we rely on high-quality expertise. As the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe, it […]
Do they have real, observable effects, or are they merely calculational tools?
Is it groupthink? Or is there a deeper reason? In the early half of the 20th century, even after the discovery of the expanding Universe, physicists considered a wide variety of […]
We have to use the right definition for the specific question we’re asking. When it comes to the Universe, we frequently characterize objects by examining and reporting on their physical […]
Science can teach us so much about our planet, but something more must compel us to take care of it. If you want to understand our planet, the best way to […]
And could Earth-based life provide the seeds for biology elsewhere? Today, on Earth, there’s an enormous variety and diversity of life on our planet. Every single surviving lifeform appears, in […]