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matter

PHYSICS: Meet the Swirlon

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school of fish - swirlon - Yay Images

Fish school, insects swarm and birds fly in murmurations. Now, new research finds that on the most basic level, this kind of group behavior forms a new kind of active matter, called a swirlonic state. Physical laws such as Newton’s second law of motion — which states that as a force applied to an object increases, its acceleration increases, and that as the object’s mass increases, its acceleration decreases — apply to passive, nonliving matter, ranging from atoms to planets. But much of the matter in the world is active matter and moves under its own, self-directed, force, said Nikolai … Read more

Astrophysicists Figure Out How Much Stuff There Is

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The stuff that makes up our universe is tricky to measure, to put it mildly. We know that most of the universe’s matter-energy density consists of dark energy, the mysterious unknown force that’s driving the universe’s expansion. And we know that the rest is matter, both normal and dark. Accurately figuring out the proportions of these three is a challenge, but researchers now say they’ve performed one of the most precise measurements yet to determine the proportion of matter. According to their calculations, normal matter and dark matter combined make up 31.5 percent of the matter-energy density of the universe. … Read more

Spacetime Ripples Could Explain Why Universe Exists

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A new study may help answer one of the universe’s biggest mysteries: Why is there more matter than antimatter? That answer, in turn, could explain why everything from atoms to black holes exists. Billions of years ago, soon after the Big Bang, cosmic inflation stretched the tiny seed of our universe and transformed energy into matter. Physicists think inflation initially created the same amount of matter and antimatter, which annihilate each other on contact. But then something happened that tipped the scales in favor of matter, allowing everything we can see and touch to come into existence — and a … Read more

What If Consciousness Pervaded the Universe?

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One of science’s most challenging problems is a question that can be stated easily: Where does consciousness come from? In his new book Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness, philosopher Philip Goff considers a radical perspective: What if consciousness is not something special that the brain does but is instead a quality inherent to all matter? It is a theory known as “panpsychism,” and Goff guides readers through the history of the idea, answers common objections (such as “That’s just crazy!”) and explains why he believes panpsychism represents the best path forward. He answered questions from Mind … Read more

SPACE: Astronomers Find Clue to Missing Matter

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Astronomers think they’ve found a new clue in their continuing quest to solve one of the most substantial mysteries of the cosmos: where about a third of the universe’s matter is hiding. That missing matter isn’t dark matter (a whole different head-scratcher), it’s perfectly normal, run-of-the-mill matter that scientists simply can’t find. And that makes it a massive cosmic annoyance for astronomers. But a team of researchers may have figured out a clue that will help them track down this missing matter, thanks to the NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. “If we find this missing mass, we can solve one of … Read more

Are Black Holes Portals to the Future? – Live Science

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Black holes are among the most mysterious places in the universe; locations where the very fabric of space and time are warped so badly that not even light can escape from them. According to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, at their center lies a singularity, a place where the mass of many stars is crushed into a volume with exactly zero size. However, two recent physics papers, published on Dec.10 in the journals Physical Review Letters and Physical Review D, respectively, may make scientists reconsider what we think we know about black holes. Black holes might not last forever, and … Read more