If the Moon was really formed when the early Earth was hit by a Mars-sized object, it should mostly be the detritus of that object. But it is mostly Earth stuff. So…
Physics
Doubt cast on new “exomoon” Rob Sheldon explains
Sheldon: There are red flags all over this data, but the investigators are standing by their measurement. This is what irreproducible papers look like in physics, and why the same crisis that afflicts other disciplines also afflicts physics.
At Quanta: Sun “stranger than astrophysicists imagined”
Naturally, they’re hoping for some new physics to come out of these surprises. Just think, if new physics comes out of this, it will be real physics too, not rubbish about the multiverse or how we are all living in some space alien’s giant sim world.
Rob Sheldon: Here’s why physicists are surprised by the universe’s increased expansion rate
The two methods differ in that one is “direct” and the other “indirect”. Clearly one or both of them is making a mistake. Since it is hard to find (and people have looked) a reason why the direct method is failing, the feeling is that the indirect method must have a mistake in its model.
Do science hero stories stand in the way of progress?
Sabine Hossenfelder thinks that in fundamental physics the problem is not a shortage of smart people but a shortage of smart people who grasp that they are simply “wheels in the machinery.”
Have quantum physics’ problems been disgracefully swept under the carpet?
Possibly, but maybe it’s inherently fuzzy. Meanwhile, an update on Adam Becker’s attack on Inference Review as an ID-friendly rag; Peter Woit and Sabine Hossenfelder weigh in.
Bill Dembski and colleagues create an updated Magnifying the Universe tool
Dembski: It’s a lot more powerful than the earlier version, allowing visitors to click on items to get information about them and also to push and pull the images for better viewing.
Sabine Hossenfelder: Has the Large Hadron Collider “broken physics”?
Question: Who decided that physics had to be “natural”? What does that mean? And what if “naturalness” is not an attribute of the physics of our universe? What does that mean?
Video: How Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness Correlate
From Philip Cunningham: Notes: In this present video I would like to further refine and expand on the argument that I made in the “Albert Einstein vs. Quantum Mechanics and His Own Mind” video with more recent experimental evidence from quantum mechanics. and to thus further strengthen the case that the present experimental evidence that […]
Why do some biologists hate theism more than physicists do?
British physicist John Polkinghorne thinks that biologists see a more disorderly universe: I think two effects produce this hostility. One is that biologists see a much more perplexing, disorderly, and painful view of reality than is presented by the austere and beautiful order of fundamental physics. . . . There is, however, a second effect […]
SCI-TECH NEWSWATCH: Israel’s Beresheet spacecraft has a loss of comms and fails in a Moon landing attempt
The newly re-elected Prime Minister promises that Israel will persist. See Jerusalem Post for details (vids are in Hebrew): Israel’s Beresheet spacecraft fails to land safely on the moon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was at hand to watch the landing, said that Israel will continue to try landing on the moon. By JERUSALEM POST […]
Is space really “the final illusion”? Rob Sheldon comments
As far as I can tell, Smolin sees this as a Darwinian solution to The Multiverse Problem. I think I’d call it “The Multiphysics Solution”. I suppose this falls under the dictum, “Fight fire with fire.” My own estimation is “garbage in, garbage out.”
BREAKING NEWS EVENT: First images of a Black Hole Event Horizon announced
A long-awaited development, thanks to an array of radio telescopes: BBC reports: Astronomers have taken the first ever image of a black hole, which is located in a distant galaxy. It measures 40 billion km across – three million times the size of the Earth – and has been described by scientists as “a monster”. […]
No, seriously: Physicist longs for explanation of the arrow of time that explains as much as Darwin does
Actually, Darwin and his followers simply imposed a vision on the natural world: In their vision, masses of complex, specified information simply arise naturally in the struggle among life forms, though we have yet to identify a single example.
Sabine Hossenfelder: Can gravitational wave interferometers tell us if we live in a hologram universe?
It’s actually a good thing if theses in physics don’t gain currency just because they make good TED talks. That could be part of theirproblem.