Related papers: Is Winter Coming?
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…
There is unison is the scientific community about human induced climate change. Despite this, we see the web awash with claims around climate change scepticism, thus driving the need for fact checking them but at the same time providing an…
I describe reasons to think we are living in an eternally inflating multiverse where the observable "constants" of nature vary from place to place. The major obstacle to making predictions in this context is that we must regulate the…
A notably enhanced comprehension of the underlying meaning of quantum observations is achieved via a novel premise. Assessments, from first principles, are made of unexamined presumptions that lie at the heart of both conventional…
What is going on (as of August 2008) at the interface between theoretical general relativity, string-inspired models, and observational astrophysics? Quite a lot. In this mini-survey I will make a personal choice and focus on four specific…
Continuous queries over data streams may suffer from blocking operations and/or unbound wait, which may delay answers until some relevant input arrives through the data stream. These delays may turn answers, when they arrive, obsolete to…
Measurement outcomes provide data for a physical theory. Unless they are objective they support no objective scientific knowledge. So the outcome of a quantum measurement must be an objective physical fact. But recent arguments purport to…
Using observational data and an elementary rigorous statistical fact it is easily shown that the distribution of Earth's climate is non-stationary. Examination of records of hundreds of local Industrial Era temperature histories in the…
Confusion and disagreement around the notion of time is due to the fact that we often fail to recognize that we call 'time' a variety of distinct notions, only partially related to one another. Many apparently obvious properties of time are…
When one takes into account gravitation, the measurement of space and time cannot be carried out with infinite accuracy. When quantum mechanics is reformulated taking into account this lack of accuracy, the resolution of the measurement…
In this work we attempt to confront the orthodox widespread claim present in the foundational literature of Quantum Mechanics (QM) according to which 'superpositions are never actually observed in the lab'. In order to do so, we begin by…
A definition is proposed to give precise meaning to the counterfactual statements that often appear in discussions of the implications of quantum mechanics. Of particular interest are counterfactual statements which involve events occurring…
After stating the measurement problem, physicists usually assume the problem to be coming from the measurement part. Since classical probabilities also collapse when updating information, there is nothing special about quantum state…
The question whether quantum measurements reflect some underlying objective reality has no generally accepted answer. We show that description of such reality is possible under natural conditions such as linearity and causality, although in…
Practicing mathematicians often assume that mathematical claims, when they are true, have good reasons to be true. Such a state of affairs is "unreasonable", in Wigner's sense, because basic results in computational complexity suggest that…
The best mathematical arguments against a realistic interpretation of quantum mechanics - that gives definite but partially unknown values to all observables - are analysed and shown to be based on reasoning that is not compelling. This…
An overview of the experimental and observational status in gravitational physics is given, both for the known tests of general relativity and Newtonian gravity, but also for the increasing number of results where these theories run into…
In [arXiv:2409.00161v1 (2024)] Cavendish et al. raise three criticisms against our time of arrival proposal [L. Maccone and K. Sacha, Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 110402 (2020)]. Here we show that all three criticisms are without merit. One of…
One of the critical emerging challenges in climate change communication is the prevalence of conspiracy theories. This paper discusses some of the major conspiracy theories related to climate change found in a large Twitter corpus. We use a…
Time is one of those issues about which many thinkers and scientists have tried to pronounce their finest thoughts, but the discourse about time has remained vague and often inconsistent. In this paper we put forward a conceptual framework…