Does AI Already Have Free Will?

AI is becoming an increasingly important decision maker in our society whether you like it or not. But can an AI have free will? And should it be made responsible for its decisions? Philosophers are arguing both sides of the issue – let’s take a look.

We Might Finally Know Where Gold Comes From

Scientists have long been confused about where exactly gold comes from. While neutron star mergers are a plausible origin story for most of the gold in our universe, we have known for some while that the numbers don’t add up. Now, though, astrophysicists say they know how the remaining gold was created. Let’s take a look.

Surprise Progress in Quantum Computing

Quantum computing companies always claim that the next big breakthrough is around the corner. Usually you can safely ignore those claims, but a recent series of quantum computing developments might mean that commercially useful quantum computers could be just a few years off. And it looks like they are becoming dangerous faster than we thought. Let’s take a look.

This changed my life

how I learned to copy with knowing that my life is predetermined

New Evidence AI Thinks Like Humans—So Why Can’t It Reason?

In this video I have a look at the recent Apple paper that made headlines with the "Illusion of Thinking", the criticism of it, and another paper about AI thinking that appeared at almost the same time.

What is empty space?

What is empty space? In this video I summarize what physics tells us about this. What really are virtual particles? What do they have to do with the vacuum energy and can we extract this energy?



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Qubits Can Create Space, Physicists Show

In a stunning new paper, a pair of physicists argue that space could be made up of qubits, the building blocks of quantum computers, giving support to Wheeler’s “It from Qubit” idea according to which everything is ultimately qubits. Does this mean that the universe might be a quantum computer? Let’s take a look.

We Have An Aura of Visible Light, Scientists Show

Has anybody ever told you that they like your aura? Well, maybe they weren’t as crazy as you thought. According to a new study, living beings do indeed have an aura in the visible range of the spectrum. What colour is it? I’ve had a look.

AI is becoming dangerous. Are we ready?

Agentic AI – bots which can carry out certain tasks on your behalf – are about to be unleashed on the internet. But recent reports make clear that these AI agents are being shipped with a lot of serious problems. Let’s take a look.

Is physics worth the pain?

A lot of young people have asked for my advice regarding pursuing a career in physics recently. Here are my general feelings about working in the field.

New idea explains dark energy AND dark matter (maybe)

Dark energy and dark matter are two placeholders for mysterious forces and substances that expand our universe and make up the majority of its matter, respectively. In a new theory, one physicist says that defects in spacetime explain both of these mysteries at the same time. Let’s take a look.



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Scientists Measure Qualia for First Time – It was thought to be impossible

For decades, researchers have assumed that qualia – each person’s subjective experiences – can’t be measured. Indeed, the idea of qualia has long been thought to be outside of science. But a few weeks ago, a group of researchers went and measured qualia for the first time. Let’s take a look at what this means for consciousness research.

Universe Will Die Sooner Than We Thought, Physicists Claim

Current estimates about the universe’s lifespan give it about 10^1000 years before everything has collapsed to black holes and the black holes have evaporated. But in a new paper, physicists claim that this might happen in just 10^78 years, as they say that stars can evaporate in a similar manner to black holes. Really? Let’s take a look.

The Quantum Internet Just Passed A Crucial Test

Recently, researchers used fiber-optic internet cables to send quantum messages over a distance of 250 kilometers, marking the first time that quantum information has been shared over basically-normal internet infrastructure. Does this mean that the quantum internet is almost here? What even is the quantum internet? Will it revolutionize cybersecurity or is it just hype, once again? Let’s take a look.

The Theory Of Everything That Nobody Talks About

There are a whole lot of people with “theories of everything” – theories which supposedly explain how the whole universe works. Most of the time, these theories fall very short of that goal. Causal Fermion Systems are an approach that actually seems promising… though it still has its flaws. Today I have a brief summary of what might be the most underreported theory of everything out there.



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This Is Why China Wants To Drill Through The Earth’s Crust

China is investing in drilling, big time. The Chinese government recently completed a 10-kilometer borehole in the Tarim Basin, and has also launched a drillship that intends to drill into the Earth’s mantle through the seabed. If successful, it’d be the first to ever reach the mantle, after the Americans abandoned a similar project 50 years ago. Let’s take a look at both of these projects and what they’re expecting to gain through them.

New Laser Tech Might Be Future of Computing

You might associate lasers with things like destroying planets or melting through steel. But researchers are working on a way to do something more productive with the technology: cooling computer chips. It could solve a big problem because overheating is currently the major obstacle in the way of cramming more transistors onto microchips. Let’s take a look at how laser cooling works and why it might just be the cooling technology of the future.

Gravity Proves That We Live In A Simulation, Physicist Claims

Some people seem obsessed with the idea that we live in some sort of computer simulation. One physicist has gone as far as publishing a paper pushing that idea, claiming that the existence of gravity might prove that the simulation theory is indeed correct. Let’s take a look.

AI Slop Is Coming For Science

AI slop has already become prevalent across the internet (and in the classroom). But according to multiple reports, artificial intelligence is posing an increasingly serious threat to scientific literature, too. Researchers have uncovered a concerning number of AI-generated papers published in reputable journals, even experts can no longer identify AI-generated “science” images, and the amount of AI slop submitted to publishers will only increase as the technology continues to improve. Let’s take a look at what this means for the future of science.

Black Holes might turn into White Holes, and make up dark matter, physicists say

White holes are theoretical bodies in physics that are basically time-reversed black holes, meaning instead of permanently trapping matter inside themselves, they release it constantly. Recently, one team of physicists claimed that black holes can turn into white holes, another team says they know how to detect them, and yet another group claims that white holes make up dark matter. Has the time for white holes come?



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Why theories of everything keep failing

If you keep up with science headlines, you’ve probably noticed that a new “theory of everything” pops up pretty much every week, disappearing forever after its few seconds of fame. Today I want to explain why I think these theories are constantly failing, what they might be missing, and what might be the most promising approach to date.

Gravity might be a force after all

Einstein taught us that gravity is not a force. But in a recently published paper, researchers claim that we might have had it wrong this whole time, arguing that gravity is a force after all. They say that when treated correctly as a force, gravity can more easily be made into a quantum theory. I’ve had a look.

The USA is crumbling at the bottom and sinking

According to multiple recently published studies, the U.S. is collapsing, not politically, but geologically. The continental plate of North America is dripping down into the Earth’s mantle, some areas of the U.S. are sinking due to the over-extraction of groundwater, and the next earthquake in the Cascadia region might sink the coast of California.

New Record-Breaking Laser Shot at NIF: Can it break even?

In February, the US’s National Ignition Facility fired off its seventh laser shot, generating a record-breaking amount of energy for a laser-ignited fusion reaction. Can laser ignited fusion ever break even? Let’s have a look at how the technology could be made more efficient.

Why This Nobel Prize Winner Thinks Quantum Mechanics is Nonsense

Gerard ‘t Hooft won the Nobel Prize in 1999, and the recent Breakthrough Prize, for his work on the Standard Model of Particle physics. He also thinks that quantum mechanics is nonsense. Indeed, he has an alternative theory for quantum mechanics that he says is how the world really works. This theory has been almost entirely ignored by physicists. Which is unfortunate, because he predicts a limit for what quantum computers can do. Today I want to tell you about ‘t Hooft’s ideas about quantum physics, to the extent that I understand them.



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Leading Quantum Computing Firm Accused of Fraud

D-Wave, one of the world’s leading quantum computing firms, was recently accused of fraud by a short-selling firm. Just what are the accusations and are they reasonable? Let’s take a look.

Did We Get This Famous Quantum Physics Experiment Wrong?

The double-slit experiment is a famous quantum physics experiment that shows that light exhibits behavior of both a particle and a wave. In a new paper, researchers claim they’ve proven the experiment wrong, and that light is just a particle. Instead of light also being a wave that interferes with itself they say that there are both light photons and dark photons. Let’s take a look.

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Origin of consciousness located with new test

The rise of AI has made us humans increasingly question what consciousness really is. In a recent study, researchers pitted two competing theories of consciousness against one another, the controversial Integrated Information Theory versus Global Neuronal Workspace Theory. Let’s take a look at what they found.

New Renewable Unlocked: Researchers Generate Electricity From Rain

A team of biomolecular engineers have come up with a new way to generate electricity from rainfall. Their method involves having rain flow through tiny tubes, and they claim that it can generate up to 100 Watts of electricity per square meter of tubes. Will this revolutionize renewable energy? Let’s find out.

China Wants You To Be Afraid Of Their Quantum Computers

Last week, the media reported, again, that Chinese researchers used a quantum computer to crack a widely-used internet security protocol called RSA encryption. How much do we need to worry about it? Is the “quantum apocalypse” near, as some have claimed? Let’s take a look.

Does the future determine the present?

Teleology is the idea that the present is the way it is because it's shaped by a future purpose. In this video, I have a look at some theories in physics that reflect this idea and see if they make sense.

Four Starlink Satellites Fall From The Sky Each Day, Creating New Worries

Starlink and other low-orbit internet satellite companies are pumping thousands of satellites into space each year in an attempt to cover the entire planet in internet connections. Some of these satellites have already caused issues for astronomers, and new research suggests that they might create more problems in the future with the ozone layer and, potentially, the magnetic field. Recent reports have claimed that 4 to 5 Starlink Satellites burn up in the atmosphere each day, leaving behind metallic dust. How alarming is this?



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Trump's Budget Cuts: Is US Science About to Collapse?

We’re more than 100 days into the new Trump administration, and the president has made a lot of changes to federal science funding in the U.S. – budgets have been slashed, people have been fired, and 75% of American scientists are apparently considering leaving the country. What does all this mean for the future of science? Let’s take a look.

AI is too nice -- but it has a bigger problem

As AI continues to develop (slowly), users are discovering that AI chatbots are becoming nicer, indeed too nice, sometimes encouraging bad ideas and refusing to criticize obvious bullshit. Why is that and what does it mean for the future of AI? Let’s find out.

Black Holes are Quantum Computers. Kind of.

For the past two decades, physicist Gia Dvali has pushed the idea that black holes are quantum computers, even claiming that aliens might be using them. At first this sounds like another far-fetched and crazy sci-fi idea, but I think it’s not as crazy as it seems.

A New Unified Theory? I’ve had a look.

I have been alerted of a new approach to unification that reveals electromagnetism is geometric in nature. I've had a look.

Almost Forgotten Cold Fusion Idea Makes Comeback

Muon catalysed fusion is a type of cold fusion technology that’s been around for decades, but using muons in the fusion process proved tricky due to their instability and the energy needed to produce the subatomic particles. Now, though, scientific advances are beginning to make the technology more viable. Let’s take a look.

Is It Really So Bad Katy Perry Took a Daisy to Space?

Earlier this month, Katy Perry and a crew of other female celebrities flew into space on a Blue Origin spacecraft. For some reason, the backlash was tremendous. I don’t think she deserves the hate.

Climate Change Can Destroy Capitalism, Finance Experts Warn

Recently, finance and insurance experts have begun warning that climate change might spell the end of capitalism as we know it. Blind alarmism or reasonable fear? Let’s take a look.

The Andromeda Paradox Even Confuses Physicists

The Andromeda Paradox, originally from Roger Penrose, is a brain-melting thought experiment that brings up the question of whether the future is still open or already fixed in Einstein's theory of relativity As I recently noticed, it's even got multiple physicists' brains tied into knots at this point. Let's take a look.

This correction of Einstein’s theory fixes black holes

Recently, some popular science outlets have written about a new paper whose authors have supposedly "corrected" Einstein’s theory of general relativity, and thereby remedied the problem of black hole singularities. Big if true. But let’s have a look at what the paper is actually about.



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The Next Clean Fuel Hype Is Likely Ammonia

Hydrogen hype is on the decline, but we might have a replacement for it already: ammonia hype. Recently, more companies and researchers have proposed using ammonia as an alternative fuel similar to hydrogen. But is that realistic? Here is what you need to know about ammonia and the fuel of the future.

The AI Revolution Hiding in Obscure Research

AI has become increasingly integrated into our lives. But progress in its technological development has slowed down in the past year. A lot. Let’s take a look at why that is, and where the AI industry might be headed next.

Meet the Reactors Set to Upend Nuclear Fusion

Nuclear fusion is the energy source of the future, but tokamaks, the most common technological approach to fusion, seem to not be making much progress. But luckily for our clean energy dreams, a different but related alternative – the stellarator – has made strides recently. Let’s take a look.

My Take On Stephen Hawking’s Final Theory

Soon after Stephen Hawking died in 2018, his collaborator Thomas Hertog published his posthumous “final theory.” Basically, the theory builds on the idea of eternal inflation, which says that new universes are constantly being created from an even-larger sea of quantum fluctuations. Hawking’s theory sought to explain that these births happened more gradually and less disruptively, bringing the theory closer to what we observe in our universe. How groundbreaking is this theory really? Let’s take a look.

The Earth’s Core Is A Massive Helium Reserve, Researchers Claim

The world is slowly running out of Helium, and has already seen four helium shortages. It’s a problem because Helium is essential in the creation of microchips, and we need plenty of those to keep artificial intelligence running. Luckily – and surprisingly – researchers have recently published a paper claiming that the Earth’s core is actually full of the stuff. Let’s take a look.

Neutrino Measurement Supports Hawking’s Black Hole Theory

A few months ago, sensors detected a neutrino traveling through the Mediterranean Sea with 100 peta-electronvolts worth of energy. Some researchers claim that this event proves that Stephen Hawking’s theory of black hole evaporation is correct. Does this make sense? Let’s take a look.

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Researchers find major clue to consciousness

We still don’t know what “consciousness” actually means. But in a new study, researchers have used the equations of quantum mechanics to determine a brain’s “criticality,” a measure which allows them to separate waking brains from sleeping ones. I think they’re onto something. Let’s take a look.

This New Device Creates Electricity From Earth’s Magnetic Field

You would think that the title of “the world’s laziest power source” would go to solar panels, but scientists have successfully tested an even lazier power source that generates power from the Earth’s magnetic field. It doesn’t even need to go outside! Sounds too good to be true? Let’s take a look.

How I Became Particle Physicists’ Enemy #1

When I started my career in physics, I didn’t plan on becoming particle physicists’ enemy number one, but somehow I have. Here’s how it all happened.

The Entire Universe Seems to Spin, New Data Reveal

A new study has found that the universe might be spinning. What does that even mean? Let’s have a look.



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The Nuclear Renaissance Faces a Problem: Reality

All across the globe, new nuclear power plants are being built and some shuttered plants are even being revived as countries look for more ways to create clean, cheap electricity. But the nuclear renaissance faces problems.

Why CERN’s New Collider Plans are Dead on Arrival

CERN wants to build a new particle collider which will smash protons together at roughly 6 times the energies seen at the Large Hadron Collider. This project is likely to cost more than $40 billion and wouldn’t be operational until the 2070s. Let’s take a look at why a growing number of physicists are saying we’d be better off without it.

New Research Reveals How AI “Thinks” (It Doesn’t)

AI industry leaders are promising that we will soon have algorithms that can think smarter and faster than humans. But according to a new paper published by researchers from AI firm Anthropic, current AI is incapable of understanding its own “thought processes.” This means it’s not near anything you could call conscious. Let’s take a look.

No, Matt, this is no crisis

This is a comment on a recent video by Matt O'Dowd.

I find it extremely distressing that we are still discussing this even though it's abundantly clear that naturalness arguments have historically worked extremely badly. It's a pseudo-scientific method that physicists need to stop using.

We Already Have Evidence Of Dark Matter, Researchers Say

Physicists have been searching for direct evidence of dark matter for decades, but it’s eluded them… up until now, maybe. According to a group of astrophysicists, the key to detecting dark matter is actually hidden in an anomaly at the center of the Milky Way, one that scientists first detected over a decade ago. But are they right? Let’s take a look.



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Why US Professors are talking about facism

The political situation at US-American campuses has been developing quickly, with some claiming that Trump’s actions are signs of facism, dictatorship, or authoritarianism. Today I have a quick summary of what has happened in the past weeks.

First Nuclear Fusion Powered Rocket Design Unveiled

The company Pulsar Fusion recently unveiled their design plans for a new nuclear fusion powered rocket. This idea isn’t as crazy as you think – let’s have a look.

Amazon’s Quantum Breakthrough That Everyone Missed

While Microsoft’s Majorana quantum computing chip might have grabbed all the headlines earlier this year, Amazon appears to have quietly made some big progress in the quantum computing race. Their new Ocelot chip uses cat qubits to support a scalable architecture that reduces errors by up to 90%. What does that mean? Let’s take a look.

Huge Structures Discovered Under Pyramids?

On March 15, a group of researchers revealed some crazy news: using a new type of radar imaging technology, they claimed to have discovered new “internal artificial structures” beneath Egypt's three Great Pyramids in Giza. The structures supposedly included eight cylinders surrounded by constructs resembling spiral staircases. Does their radar imaging tech actually work? And if so, are those "structures" real? Let's find out.

Cosmology Crises are only Getting Worse

Cosmology, the branch of physics that deals with the universe, is facing a bit of a crisis right now. Four crises, actually. Let’s take a look at the biggest problems with our current understanding of the universe and how we got here to begin with.



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US Military Wants to Grow Biological Structures in Space

Last month, DARPA published a call for proposals on how to “grow” massive biological structures in space. It’s not as crazy as it sounds: The space race is heating up outside of the weird space biology sector. Some startups are building self-assembling space habitats, others are working on spaceports, and the ISS’s successor is in development. Let’s take a look.

New Nuclear Waste Battery Can Run For 5000 Years

Researchers from the U.K. have created a new prototype battery made out of nuclear waste by turning the irradiated graphite shielding of nuclear reactor cores into crystals. The new batteries, according to the researchers, will produce energy for up to 5,000 years. Let’s take a look.

Ex Google CEO Calls For Mutually Assured AI-Destruction

The promise of AI is that we humans might one day build something smarter than ourselves. But because we’re humans, chances are that we will first use it to gain power and spark conflicts. Luckily, according to a new “Superintelligence Strategy,” —authored, among others by Google’s ex-CEO Eric Schmidt—we’re well on the way to Mutually Assured AI Malfunction (MAIM), sort of like the “Mutually Assured Destruction” of nuclear war. Let’s take a look.

Dark Energy is Even Weirder Than we Thought, New Data Shows

There’s something crazy going on in the world of physics right now. According to new data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), the cosmological constant might not actually be constant, rather, it is decreasing and had a “phantom crossing”. What does that mean? I have a quick summary of what's new.



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The Path to AGI is Coming Into View

AI developers think that artificial general intelligence (AGI) is but a few years or a handful of years away. In this video I summarize what I think are the likely next developments that we will see.

China About to Lead World in Science and Tech

In January, Chinese AI firm DeepSeek released its DeepSeek-R1 model, which performed as well as the best American AI models with significantly lower training costs. Since then, China has made similarly impressive progress in areas such as quantum computing and agentic AI. With the country’s semiconductor industry and research paper outputs reaching new heights, is China set up to become the world’s biggest scientific superpower?

New Theory of “Cosmological Stasis” Could Explain Dark Matter

Physicists have come up with a new idea for how our universe began, and it could also explain dark matter. They say that if our universe has small extra dimensions, then these can temporarily store energy, causing a “cosmological stasis” in which the universe expands but nothing else happens. Then the stasis ends and dark matter remains. Sounds wild. What are we to make of this?

Atomic Anomaly Confirmed! Evidence for a “dark force”?

In 2020, a group of MIT researchers detected an anomaly in the nuclei of ytterbium atoms. They said that the nuclei’s strange behavior might be indicative of a “dark force” caused by a currently-undiscovered mystery particle that might make up dark matter. In 2020, the anomaly only had a significance of 3 sigma. But now, another group has confirmed it at a whopping 23 sigma! What does that mean for physics? Let’s find out.

Why I took down my climate science video

Just a brief explanation for what happened with last week's climate science video. Sorry for the confusion which, in hindsight, was rather unnecessary.

New Experiment To Look for Quantum Noise of Space Itself

Physicists are stuck on trying to figure out why gravity and quantum mechanics don’t get along. For almost 100 years now, they have been looking for a theory of quantum gravity to solve the problem. But one of the most general expectations of a quantization of gravity is that space also has quantum fluctuations. And a team of researchers from Caltech now says they’ve got a tabletop experiment which could find those fluctuations. Could this solve the problem? Let’s take a look.



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China Discovers 60,000-Year Supply of Thorium

Last week, the media reported that China had discovered 1 million tons of thorium – enough of the nuclear fuel to power the country for 60,000 years. How big is this news really? Let’s take a look.

Will AI Solve Quantum Computing?

If you’ve paid any attention to science news over the past few years, you know that AI and quantum computing are being heralded as the two most important emerging trends in tech. Currently, AI is more useful in real-world scenarios, but two new papers suggest that AI might be used to propel quantum computing development forward. Let’s take a look.

Einstein-Tile Discovered in Nature

Einstein-tiles, discovered in 2023, are shapes that can be used to cover a surface without gaps with a pattern that never repeats. A group of researchers claim they’ve found one of these rare shapes in a group of molecules that spontaneously configured themselves into a surface cover that behaves like an Einstein-tile. Let’s take a look.

What Americans Don't Understand About Europe

I’ve noticed an increasingly negative attitude of US-Americans to Europeans, and the other way round. It makes me sad because I think there’s much to admire in both America and Europe. Today I want to talk a little about what I think is going on, and what we have in common –and what not.

Time Can Run In Two Directions, Physicists Find

Why time passes is one of the biggest mysteries in physics, as the fundamental laws of nature don’t reflect a difference between moving forward and backward in time. In a new paper, researchers have shown that time might actually be able to run in two directions, meaning we might have a twin universe where time runs opposite our universe’s. Let’s take a look.



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Lonely Magnetic Northpoles Could Actually Exist, Physicists Find

Magnets always have two poles. Meaning, if you break a magnet in half, both of those halves will also have two poles. But some physicists think that particles with just one magnetic pole might exist – these theoretical particles are called monopoles. However, up until now, theories have shown that the existence of monopoles would cause a paradox by breaking up indivisible particles. Now, a group of physicists have published a new paper explaining that paradox, and monopoles might be back on the menu. Let’s take a look.

Did Climate Change Actually Make The LA Wildfires Worse?

During the recent wildfires in Los Angeles, the media briefly latched on to a study which apparently blamed climate change for making the blazes more likely to occur and also more intense. But is that really what the study says? Let’s take a look.

Why I think the new quantum gravity theory is wrong

Last year, Jonathan Oppenheim’s theory of post-quantum gravity was the only theory that made it into my Best of 2024 summary. Post-quantum gravity is one of the most interesting theories for merging quantum physics with gravity, which in turn is one of the most important problems in physics. Now, researchers say they’ve come up with a way to test the theory, though technology needs to advance before that test is possible. In this video I explain why I think it’s likely that post-quantum gravity will be falsified.

Microsoft’s Topological Qubits Probably Don’t Exist, Researchers Warn

Two weeks ago, Microsoft made a big splash in the media by claiming that they’d found a way to build a scalable quantum computing platform which could reach one million qubits in a short period of time. They claimed this was possible with the help of a type of topological qubit called Majorana states. But it appears there are several… issues with the company’s published research. I have a quick summary.

I Was Wrong About Geothermal Energy.

In the past, my outlook on geothermal power was… less than optimistic. But times have changed, and geothermal power technology has improved by leaps and bounds in a variety of ways. Today I have a quick update.

Our Universe Has Two Different Sides, Physicists Confirm

Physicists have a lot of questions about our universe. Here’s one more to add to the list: Why is it so asymmetrical? New research has confirmed an anomaly named the Hemispherical Power Asymmetry, which states that the cosmic microwave background has more fluctuations in one side of the universe than the other. The weirdest part about this is that no one even has a theory for why this might be the case.



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Should we defund academia?

In this video I explain why I think that academia will be mostly defunded in the coming decades. In a nutshell it’s because it’s for all practical purposes a planned economy and extremely inefficient. I go through the most common arguments for academia and explain why they all fail.

AI Gets Rapidly Smarter, And Makes Some Of Us Dumber

So much has happened in AI in the past week, it's hard to keep track. Grok-3, Google's AI co-scientist, GPT-5 rumours, and a Microsoft study that says AI is making us stupid -- at least some of us.

Earth’s Magnetic Field has a Hole, and it’s changing

Earth's magnetic field has a hole located over the South Atlantic Ocean. It’s called the South Atlantic Anomaly and according to NASA and the ESA, it’s changing. Could this be a sign that the Earth’s magnetic field is about to flip? I’ve had a look.

No Audible Boom from First Test Flight of Supersonic Passenger Plane

The company Boom Supersonic recently completed the first test flight of the prototype for their supersonic passenger jet. It was the first time since the Concorde flights were discontinued that a civil aeroplane crossed the Mach barrier. According to people who watched the event, no supersonic boom was audible on the ground. Are we close to seeing the return of supersonic passenger flights?

Microsoft Exaggerates Quantum Computing "Breakthrough"

A brief summary of what Microsoft's recent announcement for a topological quantum core, Majorana-1, means -- and doesn't mean.

This New Solution to a Quantum Paradox Can Improve Quantum Computing

Physicists have reexamined a decades old quantum paradox and found a way to make quantum computers more efficient — in 37 dimensions. I set out to understand what this means and here is my best attempt at explaining it.

AI at CERN can reveal how Universe Will End, New Director Says

According to the incoming director of CERN, Mark Thomson, the large hadron collider (LHC) can tell us whether or not the universe will fall apart into pure energy What is he even talking about? I have a brief summary.



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Trump and Musk Attack Academia

Donald Trump and Elon Musk are in full control of the U.S. government, and they’re using that power to attack “woke” DEI programs and slash federal funding for academic research. Let’s take a look at how those cuts have played out and how they could affect scientific research going forward.

What’s Behind the Nuclear Fusion Startup Backed by Sam Altman?

AI will require lots of energy. So it makes sense that AI supporters would invest millions of dollars into nuclear fusion, the holy grail of clean energy. One fusion startup in particular, Helion Energy, has garnered lots of support – and $1 billion in funding. What’s so special about them? I’ve had a look.

I was asked to keep this confidential

I want to read you an email that I was asked to keep confidential because I think it explains some of my worries about academia.

This New Idea Could Explain the Laws of Nature

Most physicists believe that our universe began with a Big Bang. But how did the laws of nature – for example, the strength of gravity, the speed of light, and the strength of electromagnetic interaction – come to be the way they are? A group of physicists have just put forth an interesting hypothesis on that question in a new paper. Let’s take a look.

A Big Nuclear Bomb Could Fix Climate Change, Physicist Says

A physicist suggests that we fix climate change with a 50 Gigaton nuclear bomb. This isn’t a joke. And I think it might actually work. A brief summary of this and other improbable physics fixes.

AI makes great progress at taking over the world

The release of DeepSeek’s R1 model has thrown the world of AI into chaos, with US firms dropping their safety guardrails in order to keep up, and there have been a couple other concerning stories across the industry, such as the finding that AIs can fake alignment and that we might be headed for a “gradual disempowerment” Let’s take a look.

Good news for faster-than-light travel. Bad news for time travel.

Time travel is cool science fiction tech, but it seems to directly contradict our current understanding of physics. But what about, instead of moving a whole person back in time, we try to move just a bunch of quantum particles? That’s the focus of a new paper, which came to an interesting (but also not interesting) conclusion. Let’s take a look.

Everyone Is Giving Up On Climate Goals

With the Trump administration fully in control of the U.S., it appears that the tides are changing in the climate change discussion. The White House has already withdrawn from the Paris climate agreement, Trump wants to end what he’s calling “the green new scam,” and corporations around the world are abandoning their carbon neutrality pledges. How will this affect the climate change situation? Let’s take a look.

Could this help us calculate the entire universe?

Physicists think that our universe started out as just a lot of quantum fluctuations. That means, if you’re able to calculate wave-function of those quantum fluctuations, you can learn how the universe ended up the way it is now. In a pre-print, a group of physicists around Nima Arkani-Hamed say they’ve worked out a new powerful method to calculate the wave function of the early universe, and they’re calling it the “cosmohedra.” Let’s take a look.



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A new theory of everything based on tensors?

I got a lot of questions about a new theory of everything that supposedly explains dark energy and quantum physics by way of the "Alena Tensor". I had a look. It's not the worst idea I have had on my desk recently.

Sam Altman Thinks We Need To Change Our Social Contract

Recently, social media has been circulating a clip of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman discussing the idea that we will need to reconfigure society as we continue to improve AI. Is that true? What does it even mean? And how will the emergence of a truly intelligent AI reshape our society? Let’s take a look.

This startup wants to build a conscious quantum computer

A new startup in Canada wants to build the first “conscious” artificial intelligence using quantum computing. What’s their definition of consciousness? Well, it’s based on Roger Penrose’s ideas about consciousness, ORCH-OR. I find this rather confusing because Penrose thinks that consciousness is not computable, so how are we now going to compute it?



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Countries sign up for human vaccines against bird flu. Have we learned the COVID lesson?

American viewers might have noticed the price of eggs going up (again), despite Trump’s promises to bring it down. That’s because the bird flu is spreading through America’s animals like wildfire. But should we be worried about a human pandemic? Let’s take a look.

Did DeepSeek burst the AI bubble or will the Stargate Project make it worse?

Today I have a brief recap of the Stargate Project, recently announced by the Trump administration and OpenAI, the DeepSeek r1 and Janus Pro releases, what experts have said about it, and why I am reasonably confident that this isn't the end of the AI Bubble yet.

Is String Theory Inevitable?

Last month, physicists published a paper claiming that string theory’s Veneziano amplitude is the only way to complete a quantum theory of gravity. The popular science pressed took that to ask whether string theory is inevitable. What is this all about? I've had a look.

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AI Super Agents are coming. Allegedly. What does this mean?

OpenAI recently released a research preview of their first AI agent “Operator”. But that’s not all. Apparently, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is set to meet with White House officials on January 30 in order to discuss something called an “AI PhD-level super agent.” I have no idea what this is, but I have some speculations.

A New Ice Age For Europe Is Becoming More Likely

As humanity appears all too happy to keep warming up the planet, the consequences of our actions are catching up with us. Recent measurements indicate that climate change appears to negatively affect the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). This ocean current transports warm waters from the equator towards the Earth’s poles. If the AMOC collapses, middle and northern Europe might be in for a new ice age as temperatures could dip by up to 10 degrees Celsius on average. But it’s not just a problem for Europe, it would be a global disaster. Let’s take a look.

What is “gravitic propulsion” and could the US government hide it?

The Cybertruck bomber’s mention of a “gravitic device” ignited rumours that the U.S. government might be trying to hide developments in physics, similar to what it did when the country was developing the nuclear bomb. Would that even be possible? Here’s what I think.

Physicists Claim They Solved a Big Problem in Quantum Physics

A group of physicists has claimed that a key motivation for the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is unnecessary. They seem to think that the many worlds interpretation is necessary for conservation laws (energy, momentum, angular momentum) to be fulfilled. This is all nonsense, but quantum mechanics does indeed have a problem with conservation laws. Let me explain.

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What Everyone Gets Wrong about AI

Most politicians totally misunderstand the trouble that artificial intelligence is going to bring. This isn’t a race for profit, it’s a race for power. And that power will be in the hands of a few very rich people. Does that sound like a good future?

There’s a Third Type of Particle and We Never Knew

Up until last week, physicists believed that matter is made up of only two types of particles: those whose spin has full-integer values (bosons) and those whose spin comes has half-integer values (fermions). But in a new paper, a group of researchers turned the world of physics upside down by mathematically proving that a third type of particles – the “paraparticles” are possible.

New Study Finds Alien Life Must Be Similar To Us

Everybody probably wonders how aliens might look – if they even exist. Will they look like the classic bug-eyed martian men? Or maybe more like octopuses? Nobody really knows but a group of researchers recently claimed they have figured out universal rules for howlife must evolve.

Physicists Claim This $2 Billion Experiment Can Tell Us Why We Exist

Fermilab has spent almost $2 billion on its Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). Physicists have claimed that the experiment is worthwhile because learning more about neutrinos will tell us why we exist, why the universe hasn’t disappeared, and why the universe is full of something rather than nothing. None of that is true.

Community Notes are a Bad Idea

As the Trump inauguration approaches, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta is changing its content moderation policies. They are doing away with fact-checkers and will instead implement community notes similar to X/Twitter’s. Rumours say that YouTube is working on a similar feature. I think this is a bad idea, and it won’t end well, both for social media companies and us.

Climate Engineering Is Coming, But Not Like You Think.

Climate engineering is a last ditch effort to protect humans from climate change – and we’re getting closer every day. Unfortunately, attempts of scientists to study the consequences of climate engineering have been stalled by environmental activists repeatedly. It’s a problem because climate engineering will come, and we would be better off if we understood the consequences.

Physicists Say They Know How Cold Fusion Works

Nuclear fusion reactors require massive amounts of heat and pressure to re-create conditions similar to those at the center of the Sun. Cold fusion (sometimes called “Low Energy Nuclear Reactions”) is the idea that we could make nuclear fusion work instead at much lower energy within certain materials, typically palladium. This research area has been plagued by fraud, hype, and just bad science. But now, a group of physicists say they've figured out the theory for how it works.



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I Believe The Universe Might Be Able To Think.

In my second book, Existential Physics", I wrote about the possibility that the universe might be able to think. You might think I’m joking, or gone off the deep end, or both – but hear me out.

Have Researchers Found The First Evidence For String Theory?

The BBC claims that researchers have found the first evidence for string theory, citing a recent discovery of long-wavelength gravitational waves that might indicate the existence of so-called “cosmic strings.” Crazier still, they think that this could allow time travel! But do these gravitational waves actually mean that cosmic strings exist? And what, if anything, does it have to do with time travel?



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Is Carbon Dioxide Removal the Next Stock Market Bubble?

According to the New York Times, carbon dioxide removal tech is “the new climate gold rush.” Investors have poured billions of dollars into the tech, and market analysts predict that it might become a trillion-dollar industry in the future. But does reality match the hype? Let’s look at what the numbers really say.

String Theory Can Be Proven Wrong, String Theorists Say

String theory is one of the leading theories of everything, but it’s been criticized for being impossible to prove wrong – if it can’t be falsified, there’s no way to test it against empirical evidence. Now, though, a group of scientists claim they’ve found a way to prove the theory wrong, making it more legitimate. I am not convinced.

Will We Get AGI In 2025?

The recent announcement of OpenAI’s o3 has caused rumours that Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) has arrived. According to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, a model that’s smarter than humans at “a lot of hard problems” will be available by the end of 2025. But what does that even mean, and what can we expect for 2025?

The Hydrogen Bubble Is Finally Bursting

Over the past decade, governments all over the world have invested heavily into the hydrogen economy, that is the idea to use hydrogen to store and transport energy from intermittent renewables. Over the past year, stocks of most key companies in the business have tumbled by as much as 50%. There are good reasons for this.

Quantum Hype Goes Crazy. But Why?

Late last year, quantum computing stocks saw a massive spike in value, with companies like D-wave, Rigetti, and Ion Q jumping by more than 600%. What’s behind this sudden shift? Is it all hype, or something else? I recently came across an interesting recording of a panel discussion that sheds light on what is going on. Let’s take a look.

Climate Scientists are Very Confused

Over the course of 2024, global temperatures hit record highs, yet again. Climate scientists are beginning to worry that temperatures are increasing faster than their models led them to expect. A paper that recently appeared said that the reason for the rapid warming is a reduction in certain types of clouds. If this is correct, and if that’s a trend, it’s very bad news. Welcome to 2025.

Dark Energy Is Not Real, New Data Analysis Finds

According to our current understanding of astrophysics, the universe is not only expanding, but also growing at an ever-increasing rate. The most-accepted model for this expansion attributes the accelerated expansion to dark energy – but what if it’s wrong? A group of astrophysicists have offered up a different explanation, which they call the “timescape” model. They claim that it fits the data better than dark energy. Let’s take a look.



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