Tag Archives: physics

Does Time Exist? Einstein, Julian Barbour, Lee Smolin, Some Greek Philosophers–And The New Data From The NASA Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope

Posted on June 2, 2015 by

Julian Barbour, Albert Einstein, and Parmenides vs. Anaximander and Lee Smolin. Theoretical physicist, Julian Barbour, believes that what we experience as time passing actually consists of frozen moments of space-time in relation to one another (akin to a flip book). It … Continue reading →

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Brian Greene Still Thinks String Theory Has Promise

Posted on December 27, 2014 by

30 years of work on string theory without experimental verification has not deterred Columbia theoretical physicist Brian Greene. He’s still betting on string theory. Money quote from his January 2015 article in Smithsonian magazine: I’m gratified at how far we’ve … Continue reading →

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Jeremy England on the Origin of Life

Posted on October 1, 2014 by

__________ More on Jeremy England here.

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Lawrence Krauss on the Recent Direct Evidence for Cosmic Inflation–and What It Might Mean for God Belief

Posted on April 15, 2014 by

At The New Yorker, physicist Lawrence Krauss gives his take on the recent direct evidence that cosmic inflation is real. Money quote: At rare moments in scientific history, a new window on the universe opens up that changes everything. Today … Continue reading →

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God or the Multiverse: Who or What Banged the Big Bang?

Posted on April 3, 2014 by

Physicists Andrei Linde and Alan Guth “distorted by gravitational waves.” (HuffPost image.) __________ Cosmic background radiation has long been considered by physicists to be the smoking gun evidence for the big bang, but what about the recent discovery of bent … Continue reading →

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Cosmic Inflation? John Horgan Taps the Brakes

Posted on March 20, 2014 by

Science writer John Horgan (who is not a physicist) is intrigued by the recent evidence for the theory of cosmic inflation, but is also holding out for some additional confirmation, support, and explanation before he buys what some prominent physicists, … Continue reading →

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Does the Recent Discovery of Cosmic Inflation Bolster the Multiverse Hypothesis?

Posted on March 19, 2014 by

Apparently it does, and that considerably. This comes via Space.com: The new research also lends credence to the idea of a multiverse. This theory posits that, when the universe grew exponentially in the first tiny fraction of a second after the … Continue reading →

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Dissipation-Driven Adaptive Organization: Is Jeremy England The Next Charles Darwin?

Posted on January 27, 2014 by

The guy to watch. There’s a young (31-year-old) MIT assistant professor of physics who may have discovered, via theorizing about thermodynamics and entropy, a supplement to natural selection, showing the origin and evolution of life to be, not a difficult … Continue reading →

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Does This Image Debunk Evolution?

Posted on November 19, 2013 by

A pastor in Colorado apparently thinks the above image scores big points against evolution, writing the following: This snowflake was photographed in Russia. Is this not a most amazing picture? Let’s see, this is either the result of evolution or … Continue reading →

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Stephen Barr on God and Science

Posted on July 21, 2013 by

Below is a talk by Stephen Barr, a Catholic and physicist who teaches at the University of Delaware. He has thought a lot about the relationship of science to religion, and his views are interesting. He also has an excellent book … Continue reading →

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What Goes Around Comes Around

Posted on June 27, 2013 by

Everything’s interconnected. The following is from G. Legman’s Rationale of the Dirty Joke Vol 2 (1973) p. 371: In a nice example of psychological displacement, Sir Walter Raleigh is said to have hit his son at the dinner table, whereupon his son in turn … Continue reading →

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Lee Smolin’s Time Reborn: Physics, Evolution, Atheism, and Buddhism

Posted on June 4, 2013 by

Theoretical physicist Lee Smolin’s new book, Time Reborn (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2013), is mind-blowing–I assume it will still be talked about fifty years from now–and I’ll do my best in this post, having read the book through with great pleasure … Continue reading →

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An Infinity of Doppelgängers: The Jaw Dropping NYT Science News Story You May Have Missed

Posted on January 4, 2013 by

The most nightmarish news bringing in 2013 isn’t coming from Iran or the Republican Party, but physicists and cosmologists: you–yes, you–may have a twin, a doppelgänger. Seriously. Lots and lots and lots of them. As may all of us. Written by science … Continue reading →

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Is Our Universe A Computer Simulation?

Posted on December 26, 2012 by

In the above image snapped at the Getty Villa in Malibu, poor crocodile is no crocodile at all, but the representation of a crocodile; the simulacrum of a crocodile. Might you be a simulacrum as well?  This post is about … Continue reading →

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A Universe from Nothing? Lee Smolin Sasses Lawrence Krauss’s Confidence Atheism

Posted on July 24, 2012 by

Buried deep in the comboxes of a post at the blog site What There Is and Why There Is Anything, the physicist Lee Smolin took the time to weigh-in on whether one of his colleagues, Lawrence Krauss, should be claiming … Continue reading →

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Does the Higgs Boson Demonstrate That God is Mitt Romney?

Posted on July 15, 2012 by

I’ll get to the Mitt Romney connection in just a moment. But first a bit of background. When scientists announced their discovery on July 4th of the Higgs boson–the so-called God particle that causes the universe to have mass and … Continue reading →

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The Higgs Boson Explained

Posted on July 5, 2012 by
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A Universe from Nothing? David Albert Owns Lawrence Krauss

Posted on March 28, 2012 by

In a recent review for the New York Times, philosopher David Albert explains the basic thesis of physicist Lawrence Krauss’s new book, A Universe From Nothing, in terms that are clear as a bell, then he skewers it just as effectively. … Continue reading →

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A Challenge for Atheist Materialism: Independent of Consciousness, Does Color Exist?

Posted on March 17, 2012 by

The astounding answer, according to Scientific American blogger Michael Moyer, is no: Pink is not out there, because no color is really “out there.” The world is full of electromagnetic radiation, and the only intrinsic properties that this radiation possesses are physical ones … Continue reading →

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“Multiverse of the Gaps” vs. “God of the Gaps”

Posted on January 29, 2012 by

Have you noticed? Contemporary theists and atheists, in their debates with one another, tend to invoke gap arguments that mirror each other. For the theist, God-of-the-gaps arguments are designed to introduce mind into an explanation; for the atheist, multiverse-of-the-gaps arguments … Continue reading →

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