Free Republic

We trust the scientists around us to have the best grasp on how the world actually works. So at this year's 2016 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate at the American Museum of Natural History, which addressed the question of whether the universe is a simulation, the answers from some panelists may be more comforting than the responses from others. Physicist Lisa Randall, for example, said that she thought the odds that the universe isn't "real" are so low as to be "effectively zero." A satisfying answer for those who don't want to sit there puzzling out what it would mean for...

Physicists say there is a possibility that our world is merely a simulation They claim there may be evidence of this if only we know where to look For instance, some of the laws of physics may not quite add up, they say The year is 2050 and super-intelligent robots have taken over the planet. Except you have no idea, because you're living in a computer simulation, depicting what life was like in 2015. Everything you see and touch right now has been created by robotic overlords who are using humanity as playthings in their virtual game. That's the radical...

As neuroscientists from around the world continue to unravel brain processes they include a multidisciplinary approach that goes beyond the brain cells. New research has used neurobiology and nano-scale engineering to study neural circuits and their link to behavior.

The universe is a hologram and everything you can see - including this article and the device you are reading it on - is a mere projection. This is according to a controversial model proposed in 1997 by theoretical physicist Juan Maldacena.Until now the bizarre theory had never been tested, but recent mathematical models suggest that the mind-boggling principle could be true.Professor Maldacena's model suggests that the universe exists in nine dimensions of space and one of time.Now Japanese researchers have attempted to tackle this problem by providing mathematical evidence that the holographic principle might be correct, according to a...

If you "lived inside" a hologram, you could tell by measuring the blurring. Fermilab is building a interferometer to test space time for holographic blurring. Possible consequence of holography Hypothesis: observable correlations are encoded on light sheets and limited by information capacity of a Planck wavelength carrier (“Planck information flux” limit) Predicts uncertainty in position at Planck diffraction scale

Finding could offer insight into autism and other disorders Related Links: Dr. Ralph Adolphs Pasadena, Calif.—In a finding that sheds new light on the neural mechanisms involved in social behavior, neuroscientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have pinpointed the brain structure responsible for our sense of personal space.The discovery, described in the August 30 issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience, could offer insight into autism and other disorders where social distance is an issue.The structure, the amygdala—a pair of almond-shaped regions located in the medial temporal lobes—was previously known to process strong negative emotions, such as anger and...

DRIVING through the countryside south of Hanover, it would be easy to miss the GEO600 experiment. From the outside, it doesn't look much: in the corner of a field stands an assortment of boxy temporary buildings, from which two long trenches emerge, at a right angle to each other, covered with corrugated iron. Underneath the metal sheets, however, lies a detector that stretches for 600 metres. For the past seven years, this German set-up has been looking for gravitational waves - ripples in space-time thrown off by super-dense astronomical objects such as neutron stars and black holes. GEO600 has not...

DRIVING through the countryside south of Hanover, it would be easy to miss the GEO600 experiment. From the outside, it doesn't look much: in the corner of a field stands an assortment of boxy temporary buildings, from which two long trenches emerge, at a right angle to each other, covered with corrugated iron. Underneath the metal sheets, however, lies a detector that stretches for 600 metres. For the past seven years, this German set-up has been looking for gravitational waves - ripples in space-time thrown off by super-dense astronomical objects such as neutron stars and black holes. GEO600 has not...

BOOK REVIEW : The Spiritual Brain : A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul By Mario Beauregard and Denyse O'Leary HarperOne. 368 pp. $25.95 Neuroscience is a combat zone. It is here, in the human brain, that the final conflict between materialism and, to invent a word, soulism is being fought. For materialists, the outcome is not in doubt. Our minds, our selves, our awareness are merely the outcome of the electrical activity of the few pounds of hyperconnected matter between our ears. All claims to the contrary are wishful thinking or superstitious remnants. But the materialists have...

Science has long been based on the notion that law and order rule the universe. When primitive people looked at the sky, they could make sense of what they saw only by attributing it to the whims of powerful gods. But in the sixteenth century the German astronomer Johannes Kepler reduced the motion of the planets to three simple laws that guided them along elliptical orbits. His work led Isaac Newton to discover a law of gravitation that applied to any object in the universe. The universe, scientists subsequently assumed, is a predictable, clockwork system. Some parts are more complex...

  "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge in the field of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods." —Albert Einstein  The general, historical dialogue between religion and science goes back a long way—at least to Plato, Aristotle, and Leibniz. Before the 17th century, the goals of science were wisdom, understanding the natural order, and living in harmony with it. Ever since the "quantum revolution" of about 70 years ago, various scientists have been finding the intriguing parallels between their results and certain mystical-transcendental religions. Heisenberg, Bohr, Schroedinger, Eddington, Einstein—all held a mystical, spiritual...

Creation - Holographic Universe The Universe as a Hologram Author Unknown In 1982 a remarkable event took place. At the University of Paris a research team led by physicist Alain Aspect performed what may turn out to be one of the most important experiments of the 20th century. You did not hear about it on the evening news. In fact, unless you are in the habit of reading scientific journals you probably have never even heard Aspect's name, though there are some who believe his discovery may change the face of science. Aspect and his team discovered that under certain ...

Pondering Gravitational Wavesby Paul Gilster on February 11, 2016 "Einstein would be beaming," said National Science Foundation director France Córdova as she began this morning's news conference announcing the discovery of gravitational waves. I can hardly disagree, because we have in this discovery yet another confirmation of the reality of General Relativity. Caltech's Kip Thorne, who discussed black hole mergers way back in 1994 in his book Black Holes and Time Warps, said at the same news conference that Einstein must have been frustrated by the lack of available technologies to detect the gravitational waves his theory predicted, a lack...