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Scientists name new ‘object’ SDSS J0100+2802 and say it is 12.8bn light years from Earth and was formed just 900m years after the Big Bang *************************************************************A monster black hole powering “the brightest lighthouse in the distant universe” has been discovered that is 12bn times more massive than the sun, scientists have revealed.The extraordinary object is at the centre of a quasar - an intensely powerful galactic radiation source - with a million billion times the sun’s energy output.For years the nature of quasars, discovered in 1963, remained a mystery. Today scientists believe they are generated by matter heating up as...

Two physicists are trying to revive one of the great debates of twentieth-century science, arguing that the Big Bang may never have happened. Their work presents a radically different vision of the universe from the one cosmologists now work with. "The Big Bang singularity is the most serious problem of general relativity because the laws of physics appear to break down there," says Dr. Ahmed Farag Ali of Benha University, Egypt. In collaboration with Professor Saurya Das of the University of Lethbridge, Canada, Ali has created a series of equations that describe a universe much like Hoyle's; one without a...

Astronomers have discovered the largest and most luminous black hole ever seen — an ancient monster with a mass about 12 billion times that of the sun — that dates back to when the universe was less than 1 billion years old. It remains a mystery how black holes could have grown so huge in such a relatively brief time after the dawn of the universe, researchers say.

Overall, the consensus among the panelists: the LHC’s second run will produce more data to refine the Standard Model—the theory that describes subatomic particles and the forces that dictate their behavior. This refinement is needed, said Heinemann, because there are still fundamental physics questions the Standard Model can’t address. Questions remain about gravity (Why is it so weak?); antimatter (Why is there so little of it?); and dark matter, the mysterious and invisible substance that makes up nearly a quarter of the universe (What particle might be responsible?).

Infinity Is a Beautiful Concept – And It’s Ruining Physics By Max Tegmark | February 20, 2015 9:00 am I was seduced by infinity at an early age. Georg Cantor’s diagonality proof that some infinities are bigger than others mesmerized me, and his infinite hierarchy of infinities blew my mind. The assumption that something truly infinite exists in nature underlies every physics course I’ve ever taught at MIT—and, indeed, all of modern physics. But it’s an untested assumption, which begs the question: Is it actually true?A Crisis in Physics There are in fact two separate assumptions: “infinitely big” and “infinitely...

Do atoms understand language? Are you your brain and nothing else? If so, mind-control programming is quite reasonable by Jon Rappoport February 19, 2015 NoMoreFakeNews.com “The idea that somewhere in all the stacked-up universes, there might be a little corner that isn’t made out of matter or energy, but is truly independent of, and different from, sub-atomic particles… this idea confounds people, as if it might mean the end of all existence. It might mean a return to the old myths and fairy tales of the horrific priest-classes. It might mean everything science knows will vanish in a puff of...

Hypervelocity stars have been observed traversing the Galaxy at extreme velocities (700 km/s), but the mechanisms that give rise to such phenomena are still debated. Astronomer Thomas M. Tauris argues that lopsided supernova explosions can eject lower-mass Solar stars from the Galaxy at speeds up to 1280 km/s. “[This mechanism] can account for the majority (if not all) of the detected G/K-dwarf hypervelocity candidates,” he said. Several mechanisms have been proposed as the source for hypervelocity stars, and the hypotheses can vary as a function of stellar type. A simplified summary of the hypothesis Tauris favors begins with a higher-mass...

We’ve all heard of the claim of “settled science” when it comes to global warming/climate change, and we’ve all heard of the “Big Bang Theory”, and I’m not just talking about the popular TV show. The scientific theory goes all the way back to 1927. This is an artist’s concept of the metric expansion of space, where space (including hypothetical non-observable portions of the universe) is represented at each time by the circular sections. Note on the left the dramatic expansion (not to scale) occurring in the inflationary epoch, and at the center the expansion acceleration. The scheme is decorated...

A clock that is so accurate it will lose just one second in 16 billion years has been created by scientists. The device, made using super-cooled atoms held within a lattice of laser beams, is around 1,000 times more precise than the atomic clocks currently used to define time. Researchers say clocks with this level of accuracy could open up new areas of science by allowing tiny changes fluctuations in the strength of gravity to be measured.

I count myself among the many astrogeeks who (1) keep track of where all the visible planets are and who (2) hold a considered opinion regarding whether Pluto should have been downgraded from full planet status. (BTW, yes, Pluto deserves the demotion to dwarf planet; not just because it is even smaller than the dwarf planet Eris, but also because Pluto can’t walk upright like Goofy). This month provides particularly interesting evenings for stargazers. Five planets — Mars, Neptune, Venus, Uranus, and Mercury — are all bunched up within a few degrees of each other from the perspective of Earth....

Last month, I was invited to deliver the keynote address to a gathering of local Republican leaders at one of those pricey fundraising dinners. I knew that for thirty minutes, I would have the uninterrupted attention of an impressive gathering of involved conservatives and elected officials, including two United States Congressmen seated right up front. I did not want to spend that rare circumstance on temporal matters like encouraging a “Yes” vote to approve the Keystone Pipeline. Plus, I felt an obligation to deliver a speech that would seem worthy of $150 per plate. So after investing much thought, I...

Thanks to Einstein’s theory of special relativity, we can all agree that the speed of light is constant for all observers. We can also agree that, if you’re not a photon, approaching light speed comes with some pretty funky rules – namely, anyone watching you will see your length compress and your watch slow down. But the slowing of time also occurs near gravitationally potent objects, which are described by general relativity. So if you happen to be sight-seeing in the center of the Milky Way and you make the regrettable decision to get too close to our supermassive black...

Nuclear fusion is the dream of energy scientists the world over, because it promises limitless, clean electricity. Most efforts to kickstart the process use high-intensity lasers, insane magnetic field and super-hot hydrogen plasmas. But there may be a more humble alternative. It's called sonofusion, and it involves bubbles.Nuclear fusion is the process through which the cores of atoms, called nuclei, collide to form a new, larger atomic nucleus. When the two nuclei are of a lower mass than iron, the reaction creates energy—lots and lots of energy. For instance, when two hydrogen nuclei smash into each other, they creating...

Enlarge Image It sounds esoteric, like an episode of The Big Bang Theory, and maybe someday it will be. But even in the fields of physics, supersymmetry is esoteric. What is supersymmetry? What is the calamity? Why should you care?What it is... is an idea: particular superheroes! Here's their story. The standard model is the crown jewel of physics. All you need to know is it describes subatomic particles and the forces that affect them. It has 16 kinds of particles: six quarks, six leptons and four bosons. Lately, headlines tell us add the Higgs. The standard model depicts...

Scientists who made headlines last March by announcing that they'd found long-sought evidence about the early universe are now abandoning that claim. New data show that their cosmic observations no longer back up that conclusion, they say. The original announcement caused a sensation because it appeared to show evidence that the universe ballooned rapidly a split-second after its birth, in what scientist call cosmic inflation. That idea had been widely believed, but researchers had hoped to bolster it by finding a particular trait in light left over from the very early universe. That signal is what the researchers claimed they...

Is it a message from far beyond out own galaxy? A brief mysterious pulse detected by Arecibo telescope has baffled boffins. The discovery of a split-second burst of radio waves by scientists using the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico raises major new questions over what caused it. The finding by an international team of astronomers, published July 10 in The Astrophysical Journal, marks the first time that a so-called 'fast radio burst' has been detected using an instrument other than the Parkes radio telescope in Australia.

Dr. Luce Irigaray has presented a philosophical statement that likely no other person has ever even considered: that E=Mc², the famed equation by Albert Einstein, is "sexed." Irigaray, who describes herself as a "Feminist Philosopher," wrote her thoughts in the 1987 book Parler n’est jamais neutre. The quote was listed proudly recently by her current employer, The European Graduate School, as a cutting-edge example of their faculty's thinking. The quote itself is as incoherent as it sounds, but we have decided to post it in its entirety below to make certain that all context is given: "Is E=Mc² a sexed...

Based on the latest evidence and theories our galaxy could be a huge wormhole (or space-time tunnel, have you seen the movie "Interstellar?") and, if that were true, it would be "stable and navigable." This is the hypothesis put forward in a study published in Annals of Physics and conducted with the participation of SISSA in Trieste. The paper, the result of a collaboration between Indian, Italian and North American researchers, prompts scientists to re-think dark matter. "If we combine the map of the dark matter in the Milky Way with the most recent Big Bang model to explain the...

The test rig for the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) at Fermilab. I picked this image today because it kinda sorta looks like the wormhole-making machine from the film version of Contact. [Credit: moi]A lot of science fiction plot devices are devoted to getting around the speed of light. In the real Universe, nothing with mass can travel faster than light, which means we can’t travel to distant stars without taking decades, centuries, or longer in transit. So, sci-fi draws from teleportation, hyperdrive, warp drive, and the ultimate cosmic short-cut: wormholes.[1] In some cases, the source of a science fiction...

New analysis shows a way to self-propel subatomic particles, extend the lifetime of unstable isotopes. David L. Chandler | MIT News Office January 20, 2015 Press Inquiries Some physical principles have been considered immutable since the time of Isaac Newton: Light always travels in straight lines. No physical object can change its speed unless some outside force acts on it. Not so fast, says a new generation of physicists: While the underlying physical laws haven’t changed, new ways of “tricking” those laws to permit seemingly impossible actions have begun to appear. For example, work that began in 2007 proved that...