String Theory // Current TV

Mari Kimura SUBHARMONICS String Theory: A RevolutionarY technique for the violin

In April 1994, at a solo recital given by Mari Kimura in New York City, subharmonics... more

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8 months ago
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Superstring theorist Brian Greene and his idea of an infinite number of universes + Interview

Extra dimensions are old news. The newest mind-bending descriptions of reality dreamed... more

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12 months ago
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LHC defies String Theory, finds No Black Holes

LHC's answering a lot of questions and also creating a lot more. Earlier this... more

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1 year ago
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How to save the World

When trying to save the world, it helps to put things into a larger perspective by... more

mattovermatter
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1 year ago
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Seven theories of everything that pretend to describe the fundamental nature of the universe

We still don't have a theory that describes the fundamental nature of the... more

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1 year ago
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Mind-Bending Science: Visualizing The Ten Dimensions

Dimensions for dummies, very clear bite size explanation to String Theory.. or at... more

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2 years ago
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Was the Speed of Light Faster in the Early Universe?

A brilliant young physicist João Magueijo asks the heretical question: What if the speed of light—now accepted as one of the unchanging foundations of modern physics—were not constant?

Magueijo, a 40-year old native of Portugal, puts forth the heretical idea that in the very early days of the universe light traveled faster—an idea that if proven could dethrone Einstein and forever change our understanding of the universe. He is a pioneer of the varying speed of light (VSL) theory of cosmology -an alternative to the more mainstream theory of cosmic inflation- which proposes that the speed of light in the early universe was of 60 orders of magnitude faster than its present value.

Solving the most intractable problems of cosmology in one brilliant leap, Magueijo’s varying-speed-of-light theory (VSL) would have stunning implications for space travel, black holes, time dilation, and string theory—and could help uncover the grand unified theory that ultimately eluded Einstein.

Joao Magueijo's radical ideas intend to turn that Einsteinian dogma on its head. Marueijo is trying to pick apart one of Einstein’s most impenetrable tenets, the constancy of the speed of light. This idea of a constant speed (about 3×106 meters/second) -is known as the universal speed limit. Nothing can, has, or ever will travel faster than light.

Magueijo -who received his doctorate from Cambridge, has been a faculty member at Princeton and Cambridge, and is currently a professor at Imperial College, London- says: not so. His VSL theory presupposes a speed of light that can be energy or time-space dependent.

In his fist book, Faster than the Speed of Light, Magueijo leads laymen readers into the abstract realm of theoretical physics, based on several well known, as well as obscure, thinkers. The VSL model was first proposed by John Moffat, a Canadian scientist, in 1992. Magueijo carefully builds the foundations for a discussion of Big Bang cosmology, and then segues into the second half of the book, which is devoted to VSL theory.

Like most radical, potentially seminal thinkers, Magueijo shakes the foundations of the physics community, while irritating off many of his fellow scientists. VSL purposes to solve the problems at which all cosmologists are forever scratching: those inscrutable conceptual puzzles that surround the Big Bang. Currently many of these problems have no widely accepted solutions.

Could Einstein be wrong and Magueijo right? Is he a gadfly or a true, seminal genius? Time will tell.A brilliant young physicist João Magueijo asks the heretical question: What if... more

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2 years ago
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Art Time Lapse - Shark Shape

Daily Sketchbook is a year long project designed to make@everzalez a better... more

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2 years ago
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Multi-dimensional Sphere Problem from 1950s Solved.

When mathematicians talk about higher-dimensional spaces, they are referring to the number of variables, or dimensions, needed to locate a point in such a space. The surface of the earth is two-dimensional because two coordinates—latitude and longitude—are needed to specify any point on it. In more formal terms, the standard two-dimensional sphere is the set of points equidistant from a point in 2 + 1 = 3 dimensions. More generally, the standard n-dimensional sphere, or n-sphere for short, is the set of points that are at the same distance from a center point in a space of n + 1 dimensions. Spheres are among the most basic spaces in topology, the branch of mathematics that studies which properties are unchanged when an object is deformed without crushing or ripping it. Topology comes up in many studies, including those trying to determine the shape of our universe.

In recent years mathematicians have completed the classification of 3-D spaces that are “compact,” meaning that they are finite and with no edges [see “The Shapes of Space,” by Graham P. Collins; Scientific American, July 2004]. (A sphere is compact, but an infinite plane is not.) Thus, they have figured out the topologies of all possible universes, as long as those universes are compact and three-dimensional. In more than three dimensions, however, the complete classification has turned out to be intractable and even logically impossible. Topologists had hoped at least that spaces as simple as spheres would be easy enough.

John Milnor, now at Stony Brook University, complicated matters somewhat in the 1950s, when he discovered the first “exotic” 7-sphere. An exotic n-sphere is a sphere from the point of view of topology. But it is not equivalent to a standard n-sphere from the point of view of differential calculus, the language in which physics theories are formulated. The discrepancy has consequences for equations such as those that describe the motion of particles or the propagation of waves. It means that solutions to such equations (or even their formulation) on one space cannot be mapped onto the other without developing kinks, or “singularities.” Physically, the two spheres are different, incompatible worlds.

In 1963 Milnor and his colleague Michel Kervaire calculated the number of exotic 7-spheres and found that there were exactly 27 different ones. In fact, they calculated the number of n-spheres for any n from five up. Their counts, however, had an ambiguity—a possible factor of two—when n is an even number. William Browder of Princeton University later removed that ambiguity, except for dimensions of the type n = 2k - 2, starting with k = 7—specifically, 126, 254, 510, and so on. In other words, mathematicians could only guess the number of exotic spheres in these dimensions to within a factor of two, known as the Kervaire invariant because of its relation to an earlier concept invented by Kervaire.When mathematicians talk about higher-dimensional spaces, they are referring to the... more

Sam_the_Wizer
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2 years ago
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Sarah Haskins in Target Women: Super Special

Sarah takes a look back at some of her favorite Target Women pods. For more Sarah... more

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3 years ago
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The elegant universe

Now, on NOVA, take a thrill ride into a world stranger than science fiction, where you... more

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3 years ago
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20th Century Science gives way to 21st Century Fringe Science

New evidence and new proof are starting to prove that 20th century science is wrong or... more

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3 years ago
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Super-Collider re-enacts the conditions of the Big Bang

Big Bang First test a success as scientist fire up CERN super-collider Reuters... more

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3 years ago
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Dark Matter Found

Evidence of dark matter encountered. Read on.

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3 years ago
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Bend Your Head

Animated illustration of imagining the tenth dimension. Bending dimentions to go from... more

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3 years ago
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String Ducky

String Theory in under two minutes! Fun and won an award for it!

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3 years ago
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The Universe in a Test Tube?

Scientists at Lancaster University have managed to create a "superfluid" in... more

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4 years ago
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