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The Drake equation and the search for ET
A look at the Drake Equation, which is used to estimate the number of intelligent alien planets currently residing in the Milky Way galaxy. I plug my own numbers into it to see what comes out.
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Flying cars are as likely as flying pigs in the UK
A BBC article announces that Larry Page's flying car company is now training people how to fly them.
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Today is Pi Day
To celebrate pi day one of Google's employees calculated its value to 31,415,926,535,897 digits.
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Proof that measurements are relative
'Eugene's Friend', a thought experiment that suggests measurements are relative, has be proven to be true.
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Cats know their own names, study reports
Gizmodo reports on a study that appears to show cats recognise their own names, although not all scientists are convinced.
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What the picture of the M87 black hole represents
Musing on the picture of the M87 black hole taken by the Event Horizon telescope array in 2019.
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Have the fundamental physical constants changed?
An article on ArsTechnica looks at a new way to see whether the fundamental physical constants were different in the past.
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Galactic currency proposed
The University of Cambridge has proposed a new form of currency that could be the future of stellar financial transactions.
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Shuttlecocks, Hawking and what happened 'before' the universe.
A Quanta Magazine article about ideas that have sprung up as a result of the Shuttlecock Universe idea Hawking proposed in the 1980s.
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Why do bats live so long?
Pound for pound bats outlive most other species of mammals. ArsTechnica reports scientific findings on the matter.
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The 1927 Solvay Conference — perhaps the greatest ever meeting of minds
An overview of the 1927 Solvay Conference, which could be the greatest meeting of minds the world has ever seen.
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How about a dozenal world?
A BBC article portraying the advantages of counting in base 12 rather than base 10 as we currently do.
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Einstein's 'Equivalence Principle' passes the test
More than 100 years after Einstein proposed it, his General Theory of Relativity is still being tested. In this case, Einstein's 'Equivalence Principle' is put to the test.
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Protect your spuds from gulls
BBC report about how researchers at Exeter University have determined gulls are less likely to steal chips if they're being watched.
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Measuring cosmic distances
How cosmic distances are measured and why we need to use them to determine how fast the universe is expanding.
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Problem with black holes possibly existing when they shouldn’t
Gravitational-wave detectors may have discovered a black hole of a mass that shouldn't really be allowed.
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The longer we stay awake, the more we need to sleep, scientists say
A Quanta Magazine article about what happens at a cellular level during sleep. Apparently a process called phosphorylation helps us file memories.
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Proton size measured with a better ruler
A Quanta Magazine article about a new measurement of the size of the proton. Previously they thought protons might shrink in the presence of a muon, but it turned out their original measurements of the standard proton were wrong.
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What does quantum probability really mean?
An article by Sean Carroll on Quanta Magazine looks at what quantum probability might mean. I provide an intro and then link to the article.
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The truth is out there, maybe
Why haven't aliens visited us? This is the Fermi Paradox and I look at some of the reasons why this might be the case.
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Five sigma — a simple explanation
A simple explanation of what five sigma means. It is used as the level of certiainty required to class something as a discovery in physics.
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Speed, velocity and acceleration
People often confuse speed and velocity and thus end up confused about what acceleration is. This is a short explainer of those terms.
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The shape of the universe
For a long while scientists have thought the universe is flat but a recent paper suggests it's highly likely it is in fact curved.
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Why doesn't our galaxy fall into the black hole at its centre?
Supermassive black holes are huge and incredibly heavy, so why doesn't their extreme gravity consume the entire galaxy?
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Astronomers discover a star travelling at 3.7 million MPH
A binary star system got too close to the black hole at the centre of our galaxy and one of its stars acquired phenomenal speed as a result.
