I thought Electric Cars Were the Future. I Changed my Mind.
Backreaction
by Sabine Hossenfelder
4h ago
I thought electric vehicles were the future of transportation. Not so much because they're clean, but because many car enthusiasts love them for their powerful acceleration. However, it's becoming increasingly clear that the necessary upgrades to the electric grid aren't going anywhere near fast enough to get the transition done according to plan. This is why I believe now we'll likely see a ..read more
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Breakthrough Tech Makes Energy from Air – Really?
Backreaction
by Sabine Hossenfelder
18h ago
Australian television outlets were recently raving over a supposed “world-first breakthrough converting carbon dioxide into electricity”. It's a device that takes carbon dioxide from the air and turns it into power. The TV people say the technology is “not just carbon neutral but one step better, consuming CO2 and creating power”. Can this possibly be correct? Let’s have a look ..read more
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Are we surrounded by dark energy? A spacecraft tetrad will look for it
Backreaction
by Sabine Hossenfelder
2d ago
Most astrophysicists believe that 95% of the universe is dark stuff - dark matter and dark energy. We can’t see, feel, or hear it, but it’s supposedly all around us. NASA scientists recently proposed a new experiment to test what is going on with the dark stuff in our universe. The want to use four small spacecraft flying around the solar system in a tetrahedron formation to look for variations ..read more
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Institute for Extinction Risk Shuts Down: What We Know
Backreaction
by Sabine Hossenfelder
3d ago
The Future of Humanity Institute announced last week that they have shut down. Located at the University of Oxford in the UK prior to its demise, the institute was one of the few places worldwide studying the risk of human extinction and a few other controversial research areas. Let’s have a look at the events leading to the institute’s closure ..read more
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I thought Electric Cars Were the Future. I Changed My Mind
Backreaction
by Sabine Hossenfelder
4d ago
I thought electric vehicles were the future of transportation. Not so much because they're clean, but because many car enthusiasts love them for their powerful acceleration. However, it's becoming increasingly clear that the necessary upgrades to the electric grid aren't going anywhere near fast enough to get the transition done according to plan. This is why I believe now we'll likely see a ..read more
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Does time stop for light?
Backreaction
by Sabine Hossenfelder
5d ago
You might have heard that according to Einstein's theories of special and general relativity time doesn't pass for light, or that time actually stops for light. Can this possibly be correct? In this video, I will look at what the maths says and discuss what it means ..read more
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The Prof who Looked for Love and Ended up in Prison: The Supermodel Scam
Backreaction
by Sabine Hossenfelder
6d ago
This is the story of how particle physicist Paul Frampton ended up in prison for smuggling drugs after being scammed by someone who pretended to be a bikini model, and what happened next ..read more
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AI More Energy Efficient than Humans, New Study Finds
Backreaction
by Sabine Hossenfelder
1w ago
I recently read that using artificial intelligence creates fewer carbon emissions than human labour. Really? The human brain doesn't have much going for it, but we know that it is much more energy efficient than computers. What's going on here? Let’s have a look ..read more
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Modified Gravity Strikes Back
Backreaction
by Sabine Hossenfelder
1w ago
Most astrophysics are pretty convinced that 80% of the matter in the universe is some invisible stuff that they can’t detect - dark matter. The idea has become more popular recently modified gravity ran into trouble by making a wrong prediction about wide binaries. However, in a new paper, John Moffat showed that at least one version of modified gravity -- called MOG -- fits the data just fine ..read more
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This Fusion Startup is a Strong Newcomer
Backreaction
by Sabine Hossenfelder
1w ago
A new nuclear fusion startup in German is working on a "quasi-isodynamic stellerator". I had a look at what that means and think it's a pretty cool approach that is among the most solid, low-risk ideas in nuclear fusion at the moment. Doesn't mean it will work, but definitely one to have an eye on ..read more
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