Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

TagCarolyn Collins Petersen

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The Ingenuity drone-helicopter has separated from the Perseverance rover on Mars and prepares for its first flight. 3d render. Element of this image are furnished by NASA

News From the Search for Extraterrestrial Life 12

Some stars seem to be defying the known laws of physics; others are found to produce specific rare elements when they collide

In our universe: Researchers are finding more evidence that colliding neutron stars forge not only gold but strontium, lanthanum, and cerium. They expect to discover more rare elements in the debris as well. (Universe Today, October 29, 2022) At this rate, we won’t run out. 😉 The paper is open access. When neutron stars collide: Speaking of stars, some seem to be defying the known laws of physics: “An international team of astrophysicists has made a puzzling discovery while analyzing certain star clusters. The finding challenges Newton’s laws of gravity, the researchers write in their publication. Instead, the observations are consistent with the predictions of an alternative theory of gravity. However, this is controversial among experts. The results have now Read More ›

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Deep space travel. Part of the first image from NASA's new James Webb Space Telescope has been used in this composition. CREDITS: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScIhttps://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages

Theoretical Physicist: Can’t Avoid a Beginning for Our Universe

Recent shakeups from the James Webb Space Telescope images invite fundamental questions like, Does the universe have a beginning?

The recent flutter over whether the James Webb Space Telescope’s data stream is a plus or a minus for the Big Bang and the Standard Model of the universe touched on some interesting cosmological issues. The Big Bang and the Standard Model support the assumption that our universe is finite and had a beginning. Could it have been eternal — with an infinite past instead of a beginning? The trouble is, as we saw last Saturday, when we try to apply concepts like infinity — typically used in mathematics — to the physical world, the basis of reality can collapse into absurdity. The world science observes seems to be finite; time starts at a certain point, flows in one direction, Read More ›