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Thermodynamics
These theoretical megastructures represent one way an advanced civilization might harvest energy from stars.
Chemists could replace bubbling flasks with tumbling ball mills.
When the hot Big Bang first occurred, the Universe reached a maximum temperature never recreated since. What was it like back then?
Scientists have been chasing the dream of harnessing the reactions that power the Sun since the dawn of the atomic era. Interest, and investment, in the carbon-free energy source is heating up.
The second law of thermodynamics is an inviolable law of reality. Here's what everyone should know about closed, open, and isolated systems.
The matter that creates black holes won't be what comes out when they evaporate. Will the black hole information paradox ever be solved?
Nothing can escape from a black hole. So where do Hawking radiation, relativistic jets, and X-ray emissions around black holes come from?
The biggest nuclear blast in history came courtesy of Tsar Bomba. We could make something at least 100 times more powerful.
In physics, we reduce things to their elementary, fundamental components, and build emergent things out of them. That's not the full story.
42mins
Sabine Hossenfelder talks about Albert Einstein, dead grandmothers, the physics of aging, and more in this full interview with Big Think.
How do physicists solve a problem like entropy?
In the beginning, genes weren't needed.
John Templeton Foundation
We can't go back to the Big Bang, nor ahead to the heat death of the Universe. Nevertheless, here are today's natural temperature extremes.
5mins
Why does time move forward but not backward? Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder explains.
Simple physics makes hauling vast ice chunks thousands of miles fiendishly difficult — but not impossible.
Apart from the energy needed to flip the switch, no other energy is needed to transmit the information.
7mins
How the Big Bang gave us time, explained by theoretical physicist.
6mins
How did complex systems emerge from chaos? Physicist Sean Carroll explains.
Its implications go well beyond the Earth itself, affecting even the future of space travel.
If you gave me $400 and I gave you $3.15, would you consider yourself wealthier? That's a financial analogy for the supposed fusion power "breakthrough."
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?
Every time our Universe cools below a critical threshold, we fall out of equilibrium. That's the best thing that ever happened to us.
There are at least 15 different types of solid water (ice). Now, scientists believe that there might be a second type of liquid water.
In the 20th century, many options abounded as to our cosmic origins. Today, only the Big Bang survives, thanks to this critical evidence.
6mins
Darwin, Descartes, and Maxwell all believed in these science ‘demons.’
John Templeton Foundation
Should you blast the A/C even when you're not at home?
The game of Plinko perfectly illustrates chaos theory. Even with indistinguishable initial conditions, the outcome is always uncertain.
At their cores, stars can reach many millions or even billions of degrees. But even that doesn't touch the hottest of all.