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Entropy
6mins
How did complex systems emerge from chaos? Physicist Sean Carroll explains.
1hr 33mins
Everything you ever wanted to know about the Universe, explained by physicist Sean Carroll.
The most common element in the Universe, vital for forming new stars, is hydrogen. But there's a finite amount of it; what if we run out?
The answer to this question is key to understanding why anything exists.
Ever since the start of the hot Big Bang, time ticks forward as the Universe expands. But could time ever run backward, instead?
Modern cosmology conjectures different possible fates for the Universe and thus for the end of time. Details depend on which model is right.
We take for granted that time is real. But what if it's only an illusion, and a relative illusion at that? Does time even exist?
The ten greatest ideas in science form the bedrock of modern biology, chemistry, and physics. Everyone should be familiar with them.
∆G = ∆H - T∆S is one of the most abstract formulas in science, but it is also one of the most important. Without it, life cannot exist.
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 […]
If you want to get the Universe we see, a multiverse comes along for the ride. When we look out at the Universe today, it simultaneously tells us two stories about […]
If everything eventually dies and decays, is there a way to prolong the inevitable? Our Universe, as it exists today, puts us in an incredibly privileged position. Had we come […]
The inevitable long, slow decline is accelerating, and there’s nothing we can do. The Universe, as it is today, is less active, is forming fewer stars, and is creating fewer chances […]
Time always moves in the same direction, but what if the Universe were contracting? As we step forward in time, a number of things always seem to happen together. Objects […]
Entropy always increases, but that doesn’t mean it was zero to start with. One of the most inviolable laws in the Universe is the second law of thermodynamics: that in any […]
We still don’t know how the information encoded onto it gets out. No matter what you do in the Universe, its overall entropy always increases. Even when we put things in […]
And do our black holes give birth to baby Universes? When it comes to our understanding of the Universe, the 20th century was full of surprises. A little over 100 […]
It’s much more complex a question than dividing its mass by the volume of the event horizon. If you want to get a meaningful answer, you have to go deep. If […]
The ability to instantaneously jump from one location in space to another clearly violates the laws of physics. Or does it? There are a few rules in the Universe that seem […]
When two black holes merge together, about 5% of their mass gets lost. Where does that information go? Do merging black holes lose information? They absolutely must, according to General […]
It was Stephen Hawking’s obsession for the last 30 years of his life. Here’s why it matters. When it comes to the sciences, sometimes making two observations or measurements that appear […]
In the far future, the last star burns out, stellar corpses get violently ejected, and galaxies accelerate away. And then the fun begins. For centuries, the biggest questions about our Universe […]
The paradox is one that Hawking himself claimed to have a solution to many times, but none of the proposals have held up to scrutiny. The paradox is still unresolved. […]
Ever hear of Hawking radiation? Or the black hole information paradox? Time to get your fix! In memory of Stephen Hawking’s life, I’ve decided to share the physics behind his greatest […]
It’s a fascinating idea, but how does it fare as a scientific theory? “Something is happening here and this is going to have an impact.” –Robert Dijkgraaf, on Verlinde’s work The […]
‘Let there be light’ isn’t just biblical. It’s science. “By its very nature science knows no boundaries. Walling off any group, for any reason, from full participation damages the entire enterprise […]
Was it really a low-entropy state? And what does that mean for the second law of thermodynamics? “Entropy shakes its angry fist at you for being clever enough to organize […]
The latest challenger to dark matter’s throne may not be so difficult to knock off, after all. This post was written by Sabine Hossenfelder. Sabine is a theoretical physicist specialized in […]