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Philosophy
If you accept cosmic inflation and quantum physics, there’s no way out. The Multiverse is real. Look out at the Universe all you want, with arbitrarily powerful technology, and you’ll never […]
If you understand gravity well enough, you might not even need a telescope to revolutionize astronomy. In science, advances arise at the intersection of theory and real-world observation. One of […]
Yes, life exists in our Universe. No, that statement doesn’t equal science. Imagine you’ve encountered a natural phenomenon you want to understand better, but don’t have the tools to do so. […]
For billions of years, dark energy couldn’t have been detected. Now, it’s everywhere we look. When we look out at the ultra-distant Universe, billion of light-years away, we’re seeing it as […]
It’s a rare occasion for orbits to align so perfectly. Enjoy the sights this Tuesday. On Tuesday, February 19th, the Moon will reach perigee, its closest point of approach to planet […]
The heaviest elements in the periodic table have their own unique story. No, they don’t come from a supernova. When it comes to the elements of the Universe, every one […]
Whether you caught or missed the eclipse of January 20/21, 2019, here’s what you need to know for all the ones you’ll ever view again. On January 20/21, 2019, a very […]
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 […]
The Earth is getting warmer, and humans are the cause. This is why. Let’s play pretend for a moment. Pretend, if you can, that you’ve never heard about the idea of […]
With 1.6 billion households in the world, how does Santa do it? With a little Christmas magic… and a lot of science! How does Santa Claus do it? In one long […]
It’s okay to be skeptical. That’s why we have evidence. In all of human history, only 24 people have ever flown to the vicinity of the Moon, traveling hundreds of […]
Einstein’s explanation is the only one that works. When Newton first proposed the law of universal gravitation, it marked the very first time that we realized the same rule governing how […]
The first planets were only gas. The second included rocky ones, but life wasn’t possible. Here’s how we finally got there. Here in the Universe today, potentially habitable planets are practically […]
We can go to deeper and deeper levels, finding more fundamental quantities as we do. But is there a truly fundamental quantity? What is the Universe, at a fundamental level, […]
If particles weren’t also waves, the Sun would never achieve nuclear fusion. Without quantum mechanics, life on Earth would never have come to exist. The greatest source of newly-produced energy in […]
At ground zero, Trinitite, the green, glassy substance found in the area, is still radioactive and must not be picked up. The Trinity Site was where the first atomic bomb […]
The line between science and pseudoscience is imperceptible to most. Here’s how you can catch it in yourself. When it comes to science, the first principle is that you must […]
The first identified visitor from another solar system gets its own Starts With A Bang podcast! In 2017, the incredible happened: for the first time in history, we were able to […]
Despite what Hawking told you, it really isn’t about particle-antiparticle pairs at all. Nothing in the Universe lives forever. All the stars that will ever form will someday burn out; distant […]
We speak about it, argue over it, and even fight wars for it. We know it when we see it. But just what is energy, anyway? When it comes to being […]
There may be a fundamental reason why time travel, backwards, is impossible. We’ve all had the dream of traveling back in time. Whether there’s a wrong we want to right, […]
Our existence is finite, but that’s no reason for despair. Here’s a version of the story we all should hear at least once. This world, and for that matter, the entire […]
For hundreds of millions of years, most of the starlight never made it through space. Here’s how that changed. Forming stars sounds like the easiest thing in the Universe to do. […]
The cosmic records we have are meant to be broken, but oh, have we ever gone so far. The great cosmic abyss contains more that humanity can ever hope to see, […]
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 […]
Instead of eternal expansion, could we just be part of a universal cosmic cycle? There are few questions that can keep us up at night the way pondering the eventual fate […]
On September 27, 1972, scientists performed the first test of Bell’s inequality. God does play dice with the Universe, after all. One of the most puzzling and counterintuitive aspects of quantum […]
White dwarfs, neutron stars, and brown dwarfs aren’t actually stars at all. Here’s why. When it comes to stars, there’s a huge variety of different types out there. Our Sun is […]
If the Sun is 93 million miles away, why does sunlight filtering through the clouds or the trees spread out? Rays of sunshine are one of those natural sights that leave […]
We can’t help but wonder if it’s habitable, or even inhabited, but the evidence isn’t there for it. Every star that fills the night sky carries along with it one of […]