Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: physics

Nobel Prize in Physics 2024

Thanks to their work from the 1980s and onward, John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton have helped lay the foundation for the machine learning revolution that started around 2010.

The development we are now witnessing has been made possible through access to the vast amounts of data that can be used to train networks, and through the enormous increase in computing power. Today’s artificial neural networks are often enormous and constructed from many layers. These are called deep neural networks and the way they are trained is called deep learning.

A quick glance at Hopfield’s article on associative memory, from 1982, provides some perspective on this development. In it, he used a network with 30 nodes. If all the nodes are connected to each other, there are 435 connections. The nodes have their values, the connections have different strengths and, in total, there are fewer than 500 parameters to keep track of. He also tried a network with 100 nodes, but this was too complicated, given the computer he was using at the time. We can compare this to the large language models of today, which are built as networks that can contain more than one trillion parameters (one million millions).

What if Dark Energy Doesn’t Exist? New Theory Could Rewrite Cosmic Expansion

The rapid acceleration of the universe’s expansion continues to challenge our understanding of fundamental physics. Why the universe is expanding faster and faster remains one of the most intriguing open questions in modern physics. Current theories cannot fully account for this behavior using th

Physicists & Philosophers debunk The Fine Tuning Argument

The Fine-Tuning Argument is often seen as the best argument for the existence of God. Here we have assembled some of the world’s top physicists and philosophers to offer a reply. Not every critic of the argument comes from the same perspective. Some doubt there is a problem to be solved whilst others agree it is a genuine problem but think there are better solutions than the God hypothesis. Some like the multiverse and anthropics other don’t. We have tried to represent these different approaches and so it should be taken as given, that not all of the talking heads agree with each other. Nevertheless, they all share the view that the fine-tuning argument for God does not work. Nor are all the objectors atheist, Hans Halvorson offers what we think is a strong theological objection to the argument. This film does not try to argue that God doesn’t exist only that the fine-tuning argument is not a good reason to believe in God. Most of the footage was filmed exclusively for this film with some clips being re-used from our Before the Big Bang series, which can be viewed here: • Before the Big Bang 5: The No Boundary Pro… All of the critics of the fine tuning argument that appear were sent a draft of the film more than a month before release and asked for any objections either to their appearance, the narration or any other aspect of the film. No objections were raised, and many replies were extremely positive and encouraging. A timeline of the subjects covered is below:
(We define God as a perfect Omni immaterial mind as for example modern Christians and Muslims advocate, there are other conceptions of God which our video does not address).
Just to be clear, this is a polemical film arguing against the fine tuning argument.

Timecodes.

0:00 Introduction.
4:11 The universe as a roll of the dice.
6:15 what is probability?
7:28 probability problems.
9:25 measure problem.
15:45 deceptive probabilities.
20:23 the flatness problem.
22:14 counterfactuals versus probabilities.
23:59 fine tuning versus God.
37:02 necessity.
38:53 multiverse and anthropics.
47:34 Boltzmann brains.
49:45 Entropy.
52:45 Cosmological Natural Selection.
59:10 conclusion.

Image: Ball bearings as tools for studying physics in microgravity

In this Oct. 20, 2025, photo, tiny ball bearings surround a larger central bearing during the Fluid Particles experiment, conducted inside the Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG) aboard the International Space Station’s Destiny laboratory module.

A bulk container installed in the MSG, filled with viscous fluid and embedded particles, is subjected to oscillating frequencies to observe how the particles cluster and form larger structures in microgravity. Insights from this research may advance fire suppression, lunar dust mitigation, and plant growth in space. On Earth, the findings could inform our understanding of pollen dispersion, algae blooms, plastic pollution, and sea salt transport during storms.

In addition to uncovering potential benefits on Earth, research done aboard the space station helps inform long-duration missions like Artemis and future human expeditions to Mars.

Boosting the Coherence of X-Ray Free-Electron Lasers

Mode locking—a laser technique that revolutionized optical physics—has been extended to x rays, producing stable trains of attosecond pulses with unprecedented phase coherence.

X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) have transformed the study of matter by delivering femtosecond and attosecond pulses at angstrom wavelengths, enabling direct observation of ultrafast structural and electronic dynamics. Despite these successes, XFELs have long lacked a capability central to precision optical science: stable temporal phase coherence. Most XFEL facilities operate in the self-amplified spontaneous-emission (SASE) regime, in which radiation originates from microscopic shot noise in an electron beam. This mechanism produces extremely bright pulses, but shot-to-shot fluctuations in their temporal structure limit their use in phase-sensitive experiments useful for metrology, interferometry, and ultrafast spectroscopy [1].

How do I make clear ice at home? A food scientist shares easy tips

When you splurge on a cocktail in a bar, the drink often comes with a slab of aesthetically pleasing, perfectly clear ice. The stuff looks much fancier than the slightly cloudy ice you get from your home freezer. How do they do this?

Clear ice is actually made from regular water—what’s different is the freezing process.

With a little help from science, you can make clear ice at home, and it’s not even that tricky. However, there are quite a few hacks on the internet that won’t work. Let’s dive into the physics and chemistry involved.

/* */