Sabine Hossenfelder
It’s the End of the World and This Physicist Feels Fine
It’s week three of COVID lockdown here in Germany. Schools are closed, my institute is closed, my husband’s workplace is also closed. Half of the shops in the city are closed. Everything, it seems, has been canceled. Playgrounds are deserted. The police are cruising the streets to prevent people from gathering outside. It’s eerie. Nautilus […]
Electrons Don’t Think
If a philosopher starts speaking about elementary particles, run.Pinterest Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . I recently discovered panpsychism. That’s the idea that all matter—animate or inanimate—is conscious, we just happen to be somewhat more conscious than carrots. Panpsychism is the modern elan vital. When I say I “discovered” panpsychism, […]
Mind the Gap Between Science and Religion
Scientists should respect the limits of their discipline. Photo illustration by Triff / Shutterstock Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Have you heard that we may be living in a computer simulation? Or that our universe is only one of infinitely many parallel worlds in which you live every […]
The Real Differences Between Human and Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence, it seems, is now everywhere. Text translation, speech recognition, book recommendations, even your spam filter is now “artificially intelligent.” But just what do scientists mean with “artificial intelligence,” and what is artificial about it? Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Artificial intelligence is a term that was […]
When Beauty Gets in the Way of Science
Insisting that new ideas must be beautiful blocks progress in particle physics.
First Black-Hole Image: It’s Not Looks That Count
FIRST LOOK: The Event Horizon Telescope measures wavelength in the millimeter regime, too long to be seen by eye, but ideally suited to the task of imaging a black hole: The gas surrounding the black hole is almost transparent at this wavelength and the light travels to Earth almost undisturbed. Since we cannot see light […]
When Gravity Breaks Down
Theoretical physicists have known since the 1930s that quantum gravity is necessary to bring order into the laws of nature, but 80 years on, a solution isn’t anywhere in sight.Photograph by Andrea / Flickr Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log in or Join now . Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity is more than […]
The Present Phase of Stagnation in the Foundations of Physics Is Not Normal
The problem is loads of wrong predictions from theoretical physicists.
Outraged By the Google Diversity Memo? I Want You to Think About It
Damore was fired, basically, for making a well-meant, if amateurish, attempt at institutional design, based on woefully incomplete information he picked from published research studies. But however imperfect his attempt, he was fired, in short, for thinking on his own. And what example does that set?Photograph by Verco Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Log […]
What Quantum Gravity Needs Is More Experiments
Math won’t solve quantum gravity. Experimentation will.