Related papers: The question "Are We Alone?" in different cultures
From a general abstract system theoretical perspective, a quantum-like system description in the spirit of a generalized Quantum Theory may appear to be simpler and more natural than a classically inspired description. We investigate the…
It is proposed that the physical universe is an instance of a mathematical structure which possesses a dual structure, and that this dual structure is the collection of all possible knowledge of the physical universe. In turn, the physical…
The ubiquity of worlds beyond our Solar System confounds us.
Large language models (LLMs) are often described as multilingual because they can understand and respond in many languages. However, speaking a language is not the same as reasoning within a culture. This distinction motivates a critical…
Most stars are formed in a cluster or association, where the number density of stars can be high. This means that a large fraction of initially-single stars will undergo close encounters with other stars and/or exchange into binaries. We…
In many ways, the American learning system is unique in its reliance on testing using multiple-choice questions. Learning in physics, as well as in any other subject, is a context-dependent process. In this paper, I consider a broader…
We list a few things that we do not understand about stars and that most people ignore. These are all hard problems. We can learn more cosmology by working on them to reduce the systematic errors they introduce than by trying to derive…
In this work we review some of the theoretical efforts and experimental evidences related to Dark matter and Dark energy problems in the universe. These dilemmas show us how incomplete our knowledge of gravity is, and how our concepts about…
Culture evolves following a process that is akin to biological evolution, although with some significant differences. At the same time culture has often a collective good value for human groups. This paper studies culture in an evolutionary…
I present a non-technical and necessarily biased and incomplete overview of our present understanding of the physical universe and its constituents, emphasizing what we have learned from the explosive growth in cosmological and…
The existence of initial singularities in expanding universes is proved without assuming the timelike convergence condition. The assumptions made in the proof are ones likely to hold both in open universes and in many closed ones. (It is…
This paper is an answer to the first part of Adrian Kent's One World versus Many : the Inadequacy of Everettian Accounts of Evolution, Probability, and Scientific Confirmation [arXiv:0905.0624]. We take issue with Kent's arguments against…
The technological singularity refers to a hypothetical scenario in which technological advances virtually explode. The most popular scenario is the creation of super-intelligent algorithms that recursively create ever higher intelligences.…
Pathria(1972) has shown, for a pressureless closed Universe, that it is inside a black (or white) hole. We show now, that the Universe with a cosmic pressure obeying Einstein's field equations, can be inside a white-hole. In the closed…
The claimed unanimity of the scientific community about the human culpability for global warming is questioned. Up today there exists no scientific proof of human culpability. It is not the number of authors of a paper, which validates its…
Astronomy is the study of the Universe and all the objects that it comprises. Our attention is therefore usually focused beyond Earth, home to the only form of life known today. However, how can we continue to explore the secrets of the…
With a folk understanding that political polarization refers to socio-political divisions within a society, many have proclaimed that we are more divided than ever. In this account, polarization has been blamed for populism, the erosion of…
The singularity theorems of Hawking and Penrose tell us that singularities are common place in general relativity. Singularities not only occur at the beginning of the Universe at the Big Bang, but also in complete gravitational collapses…
This paper discusses experiments with single-particle systems, some of whose states appear to be entangled. It shows that the interpretation of the experiments in terms of entanglement is ill-defined. Three forms of ambiguity are discussed.…
From classical mechanics to quantum field theory, the physical facts at one point in space are held to be independent of those at other points in space. I propose that we can usefully challenge this orthodoxy in order to explain otherwise…