The Grand Si11iness of 11/11/11 11:11:11. Matt Strassler 11/11/11 Today is a special day — at least if you are fond of the numeral 1, or the number 11, and especially so if you’re willing to buy in to one of the oldest human pseudo-scientific pursuits: numerology. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I love numbers and I always have. When I was five years old I was mesmerized when my parents’ car reached 99,999.9 miles, and I think 12:34:56 on 7/8/90 is just a cool a time as anybody else does. But I do this with a sense of humor. Unfortunately it happens that a few influential people attempt serious and consequential numerology involving the calendar — predicting disaster and convincing people to sell their homes and give away their belongings.
Now that makes me mad. Of course the movies play this up too, making money off of people’s fear: we have an 11/11/11 horror film in store. Meanwhile, we should most certainly drink to this one-one-of-a-kind moment, and as we do, let’s also remember, and enjoy, just how absurd it really is. Rant. The Plant Journal - Virtual Issues. When the multiverse and many-worlds collide - physics-math - 01 June 2011.
Read full article Continue reading page |1|2 Editorial: "God deserves a cosmological explanation" TWO of the strangest ideas in modern physics - that the cosmos constantly splits into parallel universes in which every conceivable outcome of every event happens, and the notion that our universe is part of a larger multiverse - have been unified into a single theory. This solves a bizarre but fundamental problem in cosmology and has set physics circles buzzing with excitement, as well as some bewilderment.
The problem is the observability of our universe. Cosmologists reconcile this seeming contradiction by assuming that the superposition eventually "collapses" to a single state. This problem is captured in the famous thought experiment of Schrödinger's cat. Physicists call this process "decoherence". In the case of something as large as a cat, that may be possible in Schrödinger's theoretical sealed box. New Scientist Not just a website! More From New Scientist Promoted Stories Recommended by. Voices: What's Next - Interactive Feature. Remarkable morphological stasis in an extant vertebrate despite tens of millions of years of divergence — Proceedings B.
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