Good evidence that dark matter is for real.
posted on Aug 16, 2006 - View this thread

Before the Big Bang - way, way out of my depth, but I thought this comment was intriguing: "The paper as published, along with a longer follow up paper, looks to my untrained eye a nearly complete quantum gravitation theory, which is an exciting prospect in itself. However, as with all physical theories, we will await for experimental support before popping the cork." Here's some more on loop quantum gravity, spin networks, the big bang and ekpyrosis.
posted on Apr 16, 2006 - View this thread

Know less than nothing!? What could negative knowledge possibly mean? In short, after I tell you negative information, you will know less... "In this week's issue of Nature, however, Michal Horodecki and colleagues present a fresh approach to understanding quantum phenomena that cannot be grasped simply by considering their classical counterparts." [via slashdot :]
posted on Aug 8, 2005 - View this thread

The Logic of Diversity "A new book, The Wisdom of Crowds [..:] by The New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki, has recently popularized the idea that groups can, in some ways, be smarter than their members, which is superficially similar to Page's results. While Surowiecki gives many examples of what one might call collective cognition, where groups out-perform isolated individuals, he really has only one explanation for this phenomenon, based on one of his examples: jelly beans [...] averaging together many independent, unbiased guesses gives a result that is probably closer to the truth than any one guess. While true — it's the central limit theorem of statistics — it's far from being the only way in which diversity can be beneficial in problem solving." (Three-Toed Sloth)
posted on Jun 20, 2005 - View this thread

Smolin vs. Susskind on the anthropic principle. For those keeping score: Stephen Hawking is for it. Brian Greene is not.
posted on Sep 4, 2004 - View this thread

Jaron Lanier talks about philosophy, computer science and physics. Suppose poor old Shroedinger's Cat has survived all the quantum observation experiments but still has a taste for more brushes with death. We could oblige it by attaching the cat-killing box to our camera. So long as the camera can recognize an apple in front of it, the cat lives.
posted on Nov 20, 2003 - View this thread

Describing a New Entropy A reformulation of Boltzmann-Gibbs entropy by one Constantino Tsallis is causing quite a buzz/stir in the theoretical physics community. It was originally published in 1988, but it sounds like it's only recently hit its stride. There's going to be a conference on "Tsallis entropy" in October co-chaired by Murray Gell-Mann!
posted on Jul 8, 2001 - View this thread

Reading through Physics Today (as I'm wont to do on occasion) I came across this absolutely enthralling article on Wolfgang Pauli of whom I've never heard. Truly an admirable specimen among Physicus Intellectus. Also, it behooves me to mention "A Remembrance of Pauli in 1950."
posted on Feb 10, 2001 - View this thread