Related papers: The question "Are We Alone?" in different cultures
The early phase of cosmic evolution is still a great topic of interest to the cosmologist community. Especially the mechanism behind the origin of the Universe is yet to be resolved. Most people believe in the Big Bang models (singular…
In this paper we address the question of whether it is possible to obtain evidence that we are in a superposition of different worlds, as suggested by the relative state interpretation of quantum mechanics. We find that it is impossible to…
The existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life forms among the thousands of billions of galaxies that dance in the Universe is beyond doubt. Meeting with one of them is only a matter of time. SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial…
The expansion of the universe is often viewed as a uniform stretching of space that would affect compact objects, atoms and stars, as well as the separation of galaxies. One usually hears that bound systems do not take part in the general…
Supernova searches have been been suggested as a method for determining precisely the current value and time variation of the equation of state, $w$, of the dark energy component responsible for the accelerated expansion of the Universe. We…
The "paradox" arises in the Two Envelopes Paradox from the incorrect formulation of the argument. The infomation given is misused and therefore the results are incorrect for the question asked. The key is to be clear on what question we are…
Astrobiology is usually defined as the study of the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. As such it is inherently interdisciplinary and cannot help but engender a worldview infused by cosmic and evolutionary…
I argue that there are no physical singularities in space-time. Singular space-time models do not belong to the ontology of the world, because of a simple reason: they are concepts, defective solutions of Einstein's field equations. I…
Cosmological observations strongly suggest the presence of dark energy which comprises the majority of the current energy density of the universe. The equation of state relating the pressure and energy density of this dark energy, p = w…
The existence of a global time is often taken for granted but should instead be considered as a matter of investigation. By using the tools of global Lorentzian geometry I show that, under physically reasonable conditions, the impossibility…
One of the deepest unsolved puzzles of subatomic physics is why Nature prefers the left particles to the right ones. Mirror matter is an attempt to understand this mystery by assuming the existence of a "parallel''world where this…
Recently, we pointed out the possible inconsistency in the very foundations of the Everett MWI (or a Multiverse) theory. Here, we place some emphasis on the very basic notions underlying our conclusion yet motivated by certain, recently…
Planetary science beyond the boundaries of our Solar System is today in its infancy. Until a couple of decades ago, the detailed investigation of the planetary properties was restricted to objects orbiting inside the Kuiper Belt. Today, we…
Infinity, in various guises, has been invoked recently in order to `explain' a number of important questions regarding observable phenomena in science, and in particular in cosmology. Such explanations are by their nature speculative. Here…
Music evokes profound emotions, yet the universality of emotional descriptors across languages remains debated. A key challenge in cross-cultural research on music emotion is biased stimulus selection and manual curation of taxonomies,…
We review here some recent results that show that inflationary cosmological models must contain initial singularities. We also present a new singularity theorem. The question of the initial singularity re-emerges in inflationary cosmology…
Over a period of several decades a concerted effort has been made to determine whether intelligent life exists outside of our solar system, known as the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence or SETI. This has been based primarily upon…
We present here an overview of our basic understanding and recent developments on spacetime singularities in the Einstein theory of gravity. Several issues related to physical significance and implications of singularities are discussed.…
Thousands of complex natural language questions are submitted to community question answering websites on a daily basis, rendering them as one of the most important information sources these days. However, oftentimes submitted questions are…
The purpose of the paper is five-fold: (a) Argue that the question in the title can be presented in a meaningful manner and that it requires an answer. (b) Discuss the conventional answers and explain why they are unsatisfactory. (c)…