Posts Tagged ‘black holes’
“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away”*…
Reality is tough. Everything eats and is eaten. Everything destroys and is destroyed.
In a way that challenges lots of our deeply-seated conceptions (your correspondent’s, anyway), philosopher (and self-proclaimed pessimist) Drew Dalton invokes the laws of thermodynamics to argue that it is our moral duty to strike back at the Universe…
Reality is not what you think it is. It is not the foundation of our joyful flourishing. It is not an eternally renewing resource, nor something that would, were it not for our excessive intervention and reckless consumption, continue to harmoniously expand into the future. The truth is that reality is not nearly so benevolent. Like everything else that exists – stars, microbes, oil, dolphins, shadows, dust and cities – we are nothing more than cups destined to shatter endlessly through time until there is nothing left to break. This, according to the conclusions of scientists over the past two centuries, is the quiet horror that structures existence itself.
We might think this realisation belongs to the past – a closed chapter of 19th-century science – but we are still living through the consequences of the thermodynamic revolution. Just as the full metaphysical implications of the Copernican revolution took centuries to unfold, we have yet to fully grasp the philosophical and existential consequences of entropic decay. We have yet to conceive of reality as it truly is. Instead, philosophers cling to an ancient idea of the Universe in which everything keeps growing and flourishing. According to this view, existence is good. Reality is good.
But what would our metaphysics and ethics look like if we learned that reality was against us?…
Read on for his provocative argument that philosphers must grapple with the meaning of thermodynamics: “Reality is evil,” from @dmdalton.bsky.social in @aeon.co.
Dalton further explores these ideas in his book The Matter of Evil: From Speculative Realism to Ethical Pessimism (2023)
* Philip K. Dick
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As we wrestle with reality, we might send somewhat sunnier birthday greetings to Stephen William Hawking CH CBE FRS FRSA; he was born on this date in 1942. A theoretical physicist and cosmologist, he is probably best known in his professional circles for his work with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularity theorems in the framework of general relativity, for his theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation (now called Hawking radiation), and for his support of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.
But Hawking is more broadly known as a popularizer of science. His A Brief History of Time stayed on the British Sunday Times best-seller list for over four years (a record-breaking 237 weeks), and has sold over 10 million copies worldwide.
“We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe, and for that, I am extremely grateful.”
“Sure, black holes can kill us, and in a variety of interesting and gruesome ways. But, all in all, we may owe our very existence to them”*…
If you want to see a black hole tonight, just look in the direction of Sagittarius, the constellation. That’s the center of the Milky Way Galaxy and there’s a raging black hole at the very center of that constellation that holds the galaxy together.
– Michio Kaku
So, which came first: the galaxies spread through the universe, of the black holes that hold them together? Ethan Siegel answers and explains.
* Philip Plait, Death from the Skies!: These Are the Ways the World Will End…
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As we raise our eyes, we might send star-struck birthday greetings to Johann Rudolf Wolf; he was born on this date in 1816. A distinguished astronomer and mathematician, Wolf wrote on prime number theory, geometry, probability, and statistics; but he is best remembered for his work on sunspots. Working from Heinrich Schwabe’s suggestion that sunspot activity was cyclical, Wolf calculated the period of the cycle at 11.1 years; he was among the first to establish the connection of sunspot activity to geomagnetic activity on Earth; and he developed a way of quantifying sunspot activity– the Wolf number, as it is known– that remains in use.
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