Lifeboat Foundation

Year 2022 face_with_colon_three

Since the discovery of black holes, they have inspired images of the universe’s extremities in both scientists and storytellers. Their immense gravity — sucking in any matter and light unfortunate enough to come within grabbing distance — conjures images of crushing death and infinite possibility.

That same gravity, however, creates a well which consumes indiscriminately and from whence nothing can ever emerge. The only trouble is that isn’t the case. Among Stephen Hawking’s many accomplishments was the discovery that black holes actually radiate very slowly and will eventually evaporate. This discovery, while enough to make Hawking famous, threw a wrench in contemporary astrophysics by creating a paradox.

Continue reading “If you could see a black hole, it might look like a cosmic koosh ball” »

Extended special relativity describes how the universe would look if you broke the speed of light.

Scientists from the University of Warsaw in Poland and the National University of Singapore are pushing the limits of relativity with a new theory called the “extension of special relativity,” a report from Science Alert reveals.

The scientists’ new study suggests that objects may be able to go faster than the speed of light without completely shattering our current laws of physics.

Continue reading “A new physics-defying theory describes the effects of faster-than-light travel” »

John Horton Conway, born on December 26th, 1937, was a brilliant mathematician known for his contributions to a diverse array of disciplines, including group theory, number theory, algebra, geometric topology, theoretical physics, and geometry. Despite being viewed as a potential candidate for the title of greatest living…

Image credit: Max Planck Institute of Plasma physics. Cutaway of a Fusion Reactor.

A team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) and the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wein) have discovered a way to control Type-I ELM plasma instabilities, that melt the walls of fusion devices. The study is published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

There is no doubt that the day will come when fusion power plants can provide sustainable energy and solve our persistent energy problems. It is the main reason why so many scientists around the world are working on this power source. Power generation in this way actually mimics the sun.

Nothing can go faster than light. It’s a rule of physics woven into the very fabric of Einstein’s special theory of relativity. The faster something goes, the closer it gets to its perspective of time freezing to a standstill.

Go faster still, and you run into issues of time reversing, messing with notions of causality.

But researchers from the University of Warsaw in Poland and the National University of Singapore have now pushed the limits of relativity to come up with a system that doesn’t run afoul of existing physics, and might even point the way to new theories.

More energy out than in. For 7 decades, fusion scientists have chased this elusive goal, known as energy gain. At 1 a.m. on 5 December, researchers at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in California finally did it, focusing 2.05 megajoules of laser light onto a tiny capsule of fusion fuel and sparking an explosion that produced 3.15 MJ of energy—the equivalent of about three sticks of dynamite.

“This is extremely exciting, it’s a major breakthrough,” says Anne White, a plasma physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was not involved in the work.

Mark Herrmann, who leads NIF as the program director for weapons physics and design at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, says it feels “wonderful,” adding: “I’m so proud of the team.”

How did complex systems emerge from chaos? Physicist Sean Carroll explains.

A team of researchers at Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, working with a colleague at the University of Texas at Austin and another from Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia, has found evidence of ripe conditions for planet formation in the vicinity of two closely orbiting protostars.

In their paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the group describes their observations and outline what might be learned from future study of the star system.

The work by the team on this new effort came on the heels of work done by another team that discovered a pair of protostars still in the very early stages of their development—in their first 500,000 years of existence. In this new effort, the researchers have taken a closer look at the two protostars and also the environment in which they exist.

We now know of thousands of planets orbiting other stars. But we know of only planet that hosts life – the Earth.
Most scientists think that life elsewhere in the Universe is likely to exist, but so far there is no evidence that extra-terrestrials exist or that they have visited us. However, we can search for signs of life on distant planets and we are even using radio telescopes to look for messages sent to us by extra-terrestrial civilisations. In this talk Tim will discuss the latest science behind the search for alien life.

Tim is a Professor of Astrophysics and an Associate Director of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at The University of Manchester.

Continue reading “Where Are All The Aliens? | Tim O’Brien | TEDxOldham” »