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ESA / Hubble & NASA Physicists believe most of the matter in the universe is made up of an invisible substance that we only know about by its indirect effects on the stars and galaxies we can see. We’re not crazy! Without this “dark matter”, the universe as we see it would make no sense. But the nature of dark matter is a longstanding puzzle. However, a new study by Alfred Amruth at the University of Hong Kong and colleagues, published in Nature Astronomy, uses the gravitational bending of light to bring us a step closer to understanding. Invisible but...

A nearly 60-year-old mathematical problem has finally been solved. The story began last fall when David Smith, a retired print technician from Yorkshire, England, came upon a shape with a tantalizing property. The life-long tiling enthusiast discovered a 13-sided shape — dubbed the hat — that is able to fill the infinite plane without overlaps or gaps in a pattern that not only never repeats but also never can be made to repeat. This elusive shape is known to mathematicians as an aperiodic monotile or an einstein, a clever pun that takes its name from the German words ein and...

An amateur mathematician in the United Kingdom may have solved a 60-year-old problem in geometry, garnering the attention of researchers. CNN reported David Smith, a retired printing technician, has discovered a shape known as an “einstein,” which can be tiled over a surface without the pattern repeating. The outlet noted mathematicians first began working on this problem in the 1960s. Smith and three coauthors, Joseph Samuel Myers, Craig S. Kaplan, and Chaim Goodman-Strauss, published a paper explaining Smith’s finding. Smith, who says he is “always looking for an interesting shape,” wrote a blog post to serve as a “scrapbook” of...

A SUPPOSED time traveller from the year 3311 has published a bizarre confession tape in which he presented three photos of what he claimed is the future. The anonymous man’s time travel confession emerged in March 2019, after he shared his story with online paranormal investigators. The supposed time traveller had his face blurred and voiced distorted in the video but he claimed he is the real deal. Speaking to a camera for YouTube channel ApexTV, the time traveller produced three photos, which he said he took on a mission in the year 3311. The time traveller said he has...

Microlensing strikes again. Astronomers have been using the technique to detect everything from rogue planets to the most distant star ever seen. Now, astronomers have officially found another elusive object that has long been theorized, and that Universe Today first reported on back in 2009 but has never directly detected – a rogue black hole. That detection comes at the end of a 6-year observational campaign, with dozens of authors collaborating on a paper recently published in arXiv (meaning it has not yet been peer-reviewed). Those six years of painstakingly gathered data all started back in 2011, when a star...

In a quest to map out a quantum theory of gravity, researchers have used logical rules to calculate how much Einstein’s theory must change. The result matches string theory perfectly. 4 ========================================================================== Quantum gravity researchers use α to denote the size of the biggest quantum correction to Einstein’s general relativity. Recently, three physicists calculated a number pertaining to the quantum nature of gravity. When they saw the value, “we couldn’t believe it,” said Pedro Vieira, one of the three. Gravity’s quantum-scale details are not something physicists usually know how to quantify, but the trio attacked the problem using an approach...

A rare manuscript by theoretical physicist Albert Einstein goes under the hammer in Paris on Tuesday, with auctioneers aiming for a stratospheric price tag. The manuscript, containing preparatory work for Einstein's key achievement the theory of relativity, is estimated at between two and three million euros (2.3-3.4 million), according to Christie's which is hosting the sale on behalf of the Aguttes auction house. "This is without a doubt the most valuable Einstein manuscript ever to come to auction," Christie's said in a statement. The 54-page document was handwritten in 1913 and 1914 in Zurich, Switzerland, by Einstein and his colleague...

In a recently unearthed recording of an interview conducted nearly 30 years ago, a former assistant to Albert Einstein alleges that the famed scientist was enlisted to examine the Roswell wreckage, including the ET occupants of the downed craft. UFO researcher Anthony Bragalia uncovered the remarkable revelation when he tracked down ufologist Sheila Franklin, who interviewed Dr. Shirley Wright in 1993 about her time working with Einstein in the summer of 1947. As luck would have it, Franklin still had the tapes from her conversation with the former assistant and what she told the researcher was nothing short of stunning....

The Molten Ring. (Saurabh Jha/Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey) One of the most spectacular Einstein rings ever seen in space is enabling us to see what's happening in a galaxy almost at the dawn of time. The smears of light called the Molten Ring, stretched out and warped by gravitational fields, are magnifications and duplications of a galaxy whose light has traveled a whopping 9.4 billion light-years. This magnification has given us a rare insight into the stellar 'baby boom' when the Universe was still in its infancy. The early evolution of the Universe is a difficult time...

The quantum world is notoriously weird. Single particles can be in two places at once, for example. Only by making an observation do we force it to 'choose'. Before an observation we can only assign probabilities to the likely outcomes. Such a picture cannot be reconciled with a smooth, continuous fabric of space-time. According to Einstein, space-time is warped by matter and energy, but quantum physics says matter and energy exist in multiple states simultaneously — they can be both here and over there. According to Einstein, space-time is like a stage that remains in place whether actors are treading...

Decades before we knew birds could 'see' Earth's magnetic field, Albert Einstein was discussing the possibility of undiscovered super senses in his fan mail. A long-lost letter from the famous scientist to an inquiring engineer in 1949 has turned out to be extraordinarily prescient in both the field of biology and physics. The original enquiry from engineer Glyn Davys, which started the correspondence, has since been lost, but judging from Einstein's reply, Davys' question had something to do with animal perception and what it can tell us about the physical world. "It is thinkable that the investigation of the behaviour...

Observations of galactic rotation curves give one of the strongest lines of evidence pointing towards the existence of dark matter, a non-baryonic form of matter that makes up an estimated 85% of the matter in the observable Universe. Current assessments of galactic rotation curves are based upon a framework of Newtonian accounts of gravity, a new article suggests that if this is substituted with a general relativity-based model, the need to recourse to dark matter is relieved, replaced by the effects of gravitomagnetism.

A phenomenon of quantum mechanics known as superposition can impact timekeeping in high-precision clocks, according to a theoretical study from Dartmouth College, Saint Anselm College and Santa Clara University. Research describing the effect shows that superposition—the ability of an atom to exist in more than one state at the same time—leads to a correction in atomic clocks known as "quantum time dilation." The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, takes into account quantum effects beyond Albert Einstein's theory of relativity to make a new prediction about the nature of time. In the early 1900s, Albert Einstein presented a revolutionary...

Nishi Uggalle, the latest crowned champion of Channel 4’s Child Genius show, is believed to possess an IQ “higher than Einstein’s”. Impressive as it sounds for a 12-year-old winning a junior Mastermind programme, but does the comparison with the infamous physicist actually mean anything? And how seriously should we consider IQ (intelligence quotient) as a benchmark of a person’s intellectual capacity? The most notable issue is that nobody knows what Albert Einstein’s IQ was because he never took the test. It is presumed he would have an IQ score of over 160.

What is the fundamental nature of reality? Is space-time — the four-dimensional fabric of our universe — ultimately smooth at the tiniest of scales, or something else? It seems impossible to measure, but with the power of advanced telescopes peering through billions of light-years of distance, researchers are beginning to look down. Deep down.

“People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” - Albert Einstein My problem: I can’t decide whether to go back in time and be considered a genius, or forward in the hope that mankind has improved and life on earth is truly better. “I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.” - Albert Einstein Who am I kidding, I have seen the future and it is as Einstein feared: a video game. Perhaps time...

Prof Claudia de Rham’s ‘massive gravity’ theory could explain why universe expansion is accelerating Cosmologists don’t enter their profession to tackle the easy questions, but there is one paradox that has reached staggering proportions. Since the big bang, the universe has been expanding, but the known laws of physics suggest that the inward tug of gravity should be slowing down this expansion. In reality, though, the universe is ballooning at an accelerating rate. Scientists have come up with a name – dark energy – for the mysterious agent that is allowing the cosmos to expand so rapidly and which is...

Switzerland has minted the smallest gold coin the world has ever seen, state-owned Swissmint announced Thursday. The 2.96-millimeter (0.12-inch) gold coin, weighing only 0.063 grams (¹⁄500th of an ounce), is so small the viewer needs to squint closely to see world-famous physicist Albert Einstein sticking his tongue out. The coin has a nominal value of ¼ of a Swiss franc (26¢, €0.23) and can be ordered online. According to Swissmint, 999 of the coins have been made, and a single coin will be sold for 199 francs and accompanied with a special magnifying glass so owners can see Einstein. …

Albert Einstein received the Nobel Prize for explaining the photoelectric effect: in its most intuitive form, a single atom is irradiated with light. According to Einstein, light consists of particles (photons) that transfer only quantized energy to the electron of the atom. If the photon’s energy is sufficient, it knocks the electrons out of the atom. But what happens to the photon’s momentum in this process? Physicists at Goethe University are now able to answer this question. To do so, they developed and constructed and new spectrometer with previously unattainable resolution. Doctoral student Alexander Hartung became a father twice during...

Between May 29 and July 1919, an expedition organized by Cambridge astronomer Arthur Eddington and the Astronomer Royal Frank Dyson photographed first an eclipse of the Sun (May 29) and then, a month later, the stars where the Sun had been during the eclipse. By comparing the two photographs, the deflection of light caused by the Sun’s gravity could be precisely measured. Einstein’ gravity theory predicted a deflection value of 1.75 arcseconds, and Newton’s gravity theory a value half that. The results were announced in November 1919 to a joint meeting of the Royal Society and the Royal Astronomical Society....