PBS_SpaceTime

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?

Lurking in the depths of the mathematics of Einstein’s general relativity is an object even stranger than the mysterious black hole. In fact it’s the black hole’s mirror twin, the white hole. Some even think that these could be the origin of our universe.

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

Have you ever asked “what is beyond the edge of the universe?” And have you ever been told that an infinite universe that has no edge? You were told wrong. In a sense. We can define a boundary to an infinite universe, at least mathematically. And it turns out that boundary may be as real or even more real than the universe it contains.

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.

Let’s take a moment to remember the selfless sacrifices made by some amazing robotic explorers.

The Drake Equation tells us the likelihood that there are other advanced technological civilizations waiting for us among the stars. In this episode of Space Time we challenge you to use the Drake Equation to help us determine how near or far these alien races may be.

Earth has its share of monster storms, but even our most powerful hurricanes are a breeze compared to the great, planet-sized tempests of the gas giants.

We live in a universe with 3 dimensions of space and one of time. Up, down, left, right, forward, back, past, future. 3+1 dimensions. Or so our primitive Pleistocene-evolved brains find it useful to believe. And we cling to this intuition, even as physics shows us that this view of reality may be only a very narrow perception.

Quantum field theory is notoriously complicated, built from mind-bendingly abstract mathematics. But are the underlying rules of reality really so far from human intuition? Or are physicists just showing off? For better or worse, the physicists are definitely on the right track. We know this because the predictions of quantum field theory stand up to experimental test time and time again.

What do we do to protect ourselves from extinction level events? And what if some of those events are unavoidable? Can we survive adrift in space? Find out in this episode of Space Time.

Okay, going to Mars is going to be expensive. Not only that, but who we choose to pick on that trip also needs to have the statistically lowest chance of… perishing. So it might be the case that our best scenario is all female crew!

The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics tells us that observation collapses a probability wave into a single definitive outcome, but this isn’t the only interpretation of quantum mechanics. The many worlds theory proposes that the wavefunction never actually collapses. The observer simply follows one of those many possible paths into their present reality while all the other paths conti

We know the universe will continue to expand forever, so now we can begin to complete the first Friedmann equation, and determine the shape and geometry of our universe. At first glance, it would seem that the equation doesn’t quite add up, and that our universe is a hyperbolic plane. But when we add in the cosmological constant, the equation balances out, and we return to a flat universe.

Yuri Milner’s Breakthrough Starshot is an interstellar travel expedition unlike any other before it. It’s many years in the making and is contingent on a series of incredible advancements in nanotechnology, materials science and laser power. Just how likely is it that Starshot’s journey to Alpha Centauri will succeed?

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.

We were recently visited by a traveler from outside our solar system. This is the first time we’ve ever seen an object that came to us from interstellar space. It's name is 'Oumuamua.

Has a fifth fundamental force been discovered and how will this effect our understanding of the universe?

Challenge question: if 1kg of apples is $5 and 2kg is $10, how much is -1kg of apples? The answer? Priceless. Because you could use negative-mass apples to build warp drives, travel in time, and construct a perpetual motion machine. In fact that last one will be today’s actual challenge question.

NASA is really good at going to space, amongst other things, but did you know that part of their mission is to work also for the public good!? It’s part of NASA’s doctrine that they must release the patents on the stuff they work on, which has, over the years, given us some really awesome things you would have never thought have come from NASA!

Gabe breaks down the steps for how he determined the density of the moon in Majora's Mask.

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.

What happens when a star eats its planets? Find out on today’s Space Time Journal Club.

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

How do you take a picture of a black hole and what can we learn from it? Our first ever actual bona fide photo of a black hole, made by the Event Horizon Telescope and revealed to the world in a press conference on April 10th. Since then it’s got plenty of coverage, because … I mean look at it. It’s a freaking black hole. It’s black, it’s holey, it’s everything we hoped it would be.