PBS_SpaceTime

We’ll soon be capable of building self-replicating robots. This will not only change humanity’s future but reshape the galaxy as we know it.

Quasars, X-ray Binaries and Supermassive voids at the center of our galaxies … black holes take many forms. In this episode Matt tells us what these different types of black holes are and how scientists are using VLBI, Very Long Baseline Interferometry, to map the different black holes throughout the known universe.

Because you demanded it … we break down the EM Drive!

Albert Einstein strongly disagreed with Niels Bohr when it came to Bohr’s interpretation of quantum mechanics. Quantum entanglement settled the argument once and for all.

The Hubble Telescope found more evidence of vast plumes of water bursting through the icy surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa. What does this tell us about the potential for life on Europa?

Isaac Newton’s Universal Law of Gravitation tells us that there is a singularity to be found within a black hole, but scientists and mathematicians have found a number of issues with Newton’s equations. They don’t always accurately represent reality. Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity is a more complete theory of gravity.

Primordial black holes may be lurking throughout our universe. How large are they, how many are out there and what would happen if they moved through our solar system?

When Quasars were first discovered the amount of light pouring out of such a tiny dot in space seemed impossible. A hysterical flurry of hypothesizing followed: swarms of neutron stars, alien civilizations harnessing their entire galaxy’s power, bright, fast-moving objects being ejected by our own galaxy’s core.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX program proposes that 100 people could be sent to colonize Mars within 10 years. What might that colony look like?

Is our universe a definitive single reality or is it merely one within an infinitely branching multiverse?

The telescopes of tomorrow will see in infrared and ultraviolet. They will peer through space and scan across time. They will allow us to find new supernovae, spot potentially hazardous asteroids, better understand dark energy and peer into the earliest moments of space time.

Did all of dark energy just vanish? A team of scientists have just analyzed new data and claim that we need to completely rethink its existence.

Fomalhaut is a massive young star surrounded by a ring of dust debris that can tell us a great deal about the formation of our own solar system.

What happens when matter can’t get any denser yet somehow does? The answer - it becomes strange. Strange Stars may be the most massive stellar remnant that is just shy of forming a black hole. And they could be even cooler than black holes.

Last week, seven earth-like planets were discovered orbiting a Red Dwarf star 39 light years away. Each one could be capable of supporting life.

Find out how time and space switch roles when we move beyond the event horizon of the black hole.

Was an incredible drop in entropy responsible for the Big Bang? If that’s the case, this would lead us to conclude that a great many other things are possible, including the likelihood that you are a Boltzmann Brain.

The idea that our reality is a simulation is not as far-fetched as you may think. Many philosophers, scientists and tech-billionaires are seriously considering not just the possibility but the high probability that our civilization may be a program being run by another, more advanced alien civilization.

What will become of humanity after spend a few hundred years on Mars? What will happen after a few thousand? Evolution has, and still is, shaping humanity in rather drastic ways. How long will humans stop being human and become Martian?

Population III stars were the very first stars in our universe and far larger than any we can see today. Where are they now?

Quantum mechanics is perhaps the most unintuitive theory ever devised. And yet it’s also the most successful, in terms of sheer predictive power. Simply by following the math of quantum mechanics, incredible discoveries have been made. Its wild success tells us that the mathematical description provided by quantum mechanics reflects deep truths about reality.

There is a fundamental limit to the knowability of the universe. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle tells us that the more precisely we try to define one property, the less definable is its counterpart. Knowing a particle’s location perfectly means its velocity is unknowable. But unmeasured properties are not just uncertain; they are undefined.

The equations of quantum field theory allow us to calculate the behaviour of subatomic particles by expressing them as vibrations in quantum fields. But even the most elegant and complete formulations of quantum physics – like the Dirac equation or Feynman’s path integral - become impossibly complicated when we try to use them on anything but the most simple systems.

Anti-Satellite weaponry, giant X-ray lasers and kinetic impact missiles nicknamed the “Rods from God.” Find out about the history of the real star wars that have been waged over the past 50 years.

Unlock the secrets of Feynman Diagrams. Part 5 in our Quantum Field Theory series.