#quantum cosmology

[teledyn]

The current theory of cosmic inflation is largely based on classical physics. This undermines its predictivity in a world that is fundamentally quantum mechanical. With this project we will develop a novel approach towards a quantum theory of inflation.

Holographic Quantum Cosmology | HoloQosmos | Project | Fact sheet | FP7 | CORDIS | European Commission

[evilkitten3]

hey star science side of tumblr quick question for y'all

how long does it take an asteroid or comet or whatever to hit earth? like if you can see it, even if it's super tiny, how long does that give you til impact?

[camerxn]

The golden ratio in Schwarzschild-Kottler black holes

N. Cruz, M. Olivares, J. R. Villanueva

In this paper we show that the golden ratio is present in the Schwarzschild-Kottler metric. For null geodesics with maximal radial acceleration, the turning points of the orbits are in the golden ratio Φ=(5‾√−1)/2. This is a general result which is independent of the value and sign of the cosmological constant Λ.

[teledyn]

Abstract The largely dominant meritocratic paradigm of highly competitive Western cultures is rooted on the belief that success is mainly due, if not exclusively, to personal qualities such as talent, intelligence, skills, smartness, efforts, willfulness, hard work or risk taking. Sometimes, we are willing to admit that a certain degree of luck could also play a role in achieving significant success. But, as a matter of fact, it is rather common to underestimate the importance of external forces in individual successful stories. It is very well known that intelligence (or, more in general, talent and personal qualities) exhibits a Gaussian distribution among the population, whereas the distribution of wealth — often considered as a proxy of success — follows typically a power law (Pareto law), with a large majority of poor people and a very small number of billionaires. Such a discrepancy between a Normal distribution of inputs, with a typical scale (the average talent or intelligence), and the scale-invariant distribution of outputs, suggests that some hidden ingredient is at work behind the scenes. In this paper, we suggest that such an ingredient is just randomness.

TALENT VERSUS LUCK: THE ROLE OF RANDOMNESS IN SUCCESS AND FAILURE | Advances in Complex Systems

[teledyn]

"In A Brief History of Time, the early (bottom-up) Hawking famously wrote, “Even if we do find a theory of everything, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations?” The answer of the later (top-down) Hawking was: observership. We create the universe as much as the universe creates us."

-- Thomas Hertog

On the Origin of Time - Stephen Hawking's Final Theory

[teledyn]

John Wheeler was fond of illustrating his vision with a variant of the twenty questions game. In this game, a group of colleagues are seated in a living room after dinner. One is sent out. In his absence, the rest decide to play the game with a twist: They agree not to settle on a definite word but to act as if they had agreed upon a word. When the questioner returns and poses his “yes/no” questions, each respondent answers as he pleases, with the one condition that his response should be compatible with all previous ones. So at each stage of the game, everyone in the room has in mind a word that is consistent with all the answers that have been given before. Naturally, successive questions rapidly narrow down the options until both the questioner and the respondents are taken by the hand, as it were, and guided toward a single word. What that final word is, however, depends on the questions the questioner asks and even on the order of the questions. In this variant of the game, Wheeler said, “No word is a word, until that word is promoted to reality by the choice of questions asked and answers given.”

[teledyn]

It's about Time

In this short documentary, we go to the University of Queensland to find out about the limitations of quantum mechanics on timekeeping. Our relatively new understanding of how to build quantum clocks has opened up new avenues of research and has given us a better understanding of fundamental questions about the nature of our reality.

FQxI Video: The Clockmakers

The Foundational Questions Institute, FQxI, catalyzes, supports, and disseminates research on questions at the foundations of science, parti

[teledyn]

[2309.11831] Deep Photometry of Suspected Gravitational Lensing Events: Potential Detection of a Cosmic String

I was quite surprised on reading On the Origin of Time that Hawking would come out so supportive of String Theory. I hadn't been keeping track, but I thought it was still improper conversation in polite company. And here now the very next day, it looks like we may have spotted a string…

Deep Photometry of Suspected Gravitational Lensing Events: Potential Detection of a Cosmic String

Cosmic strings (CS) are one-dimensional cosmological-size objects predicted in realistic models of the early Universe. Analysis of the cosmi