Related papers: Warum Astrologie nicht funktionieren kann
Philosophical thinking has a side effect: by aiming to find the essence of a diverse set of phenomena, it often makes it difficult to see the differences between them. This can be the case with Mathematics, Programming, Writing and…
The study of asteroids, its composition and trajectories, has been a persistent interest in the space exploration community. In addition, they are also perceived as a great threat to life on Earth, considering the possibility of an impact…
The overall frequency and other statistical properties of binary systems suggest that star formation is intrinsically a complex and chaotic process, and that most binaries and single stars actually originate from the decay of multiple…
The question of why we age is a fundamental one. It is about who we are, and it also might have critical practical aspects as we try to find ways to age slower. Or to not age at all. Different reasons point at distinct strategies for the…
The study of the morphology of galaxies is important in order to understand the formation and evolution of galaxies and their sub-components as a function of luminosity, environment, and star-formation and galaxy assembly over cosmic time.…
The history of astrometry, the branch of astronomy dealing with the positions of celestial objects, is a lengthy and complex chronicle, having its origins in the earliest records of astronomical observations more than two thousand years…
Stars play a key role in the evolution of the Universe, as sources of radiation, as dynamical engines, and as chemical factories. Outputs of stellar models are then central to various studies in astrophysics. Stellar physics links…
An open problem in numerical analysis is to explain why molecular dynamics works. The difficulty is that numerical trajectories are only accurate for very short times, whereas the simulations are performed over long time intervals. It is…
The nature of time has beguiled philosophers for nearly three millennia. There are myriad types of time including cosmological time, biological time, psychological time, physical time, historical time, and even theological time. My brief…
In this paper we analyze methodological and philosophical implications of algorithmic aspects of unconventional computation. At first, we describe how the classical algorithmic universe developed and analyze why it became closed in the…
This paper argues that, insofar as we doubt the bivalence of the Continuum Hypothesis or the truth of the Axiom of Choice, we should also doubt the consistency of third-order arithmetic, both the classical and intuitionistic versions.…
Evolved stars dominate galactic spectra, enrich the galactic medium, expand to change their planetary systems, eject winds of a complex nature, produce spectacular nebulae and illuminate them, and transfer material between binary…
Observational astrophysics uses sophisticated technology to collect and measure electromagnetic and other radiation from beyond the Earth. Modern observatories produce large, complex datasets and extracting the maximum possible information…
The analysis of time variability, whether fast variations on time scales well below the second or slow changes over years, is becoming more and more important in high-energy astronomy. Many sophisticated tools are available for data…
Morphisms, structure preserving maps, are everywhere in Mathematics as useful tools for thinking and problem solving, or as objects to study. Here, we argue that the idea of operations being compatible across two domains goes beyond its…
Theoretical physics is the search for simple and universal mathematical descriptions of the natural world. In contrast, much of modern biology is an exploration of the complexity and diversity of life. For many, this contrast is prima facie…
We live at a time of contradictory messages about how successfully we understand gravity. General Relativity seems to work very well in the Earth's immediate neighborhood, but arguments abound that it needs modification at very small and/or…
Stellar evolution, a fundamental bedrock of modern astrophysics, is driven by the physical processes in stellar interiors. While we understand these processes in general terms, we lack some important ingredients. Seemingly small…
The averaging problem in cosmology is of considerable importance for the correct interpretation of cosmological data. We review cosmological observations and discuss some of the issues regarding averaging. We present a precise definition of…
Every year, hundreds of images from telescopes on the ground and in space are released to the public, making their way into popular culture through everything from computer screens to postage stamps. These images span the entire…