Big Bang · black holes · book review · Catholic Church · cosmology · creationism · general relativity · religion and science · science

Sabine Hossenfelder’s Existential Physics

My review of Sabine Hossenfelder’s new book is up at U.S. Catholic. “Hossenfelder rejects the ‘faith versus science’ dichotomy too often recycled in these books. She makes it clear from the beginning of her own, Existential Physics: A Scientist’s Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions, that spiritual ideas and traditions can be perfectly compatible with modern physics… Continue reading Sabine Hossenfelder’s Existential Physics

black holes · Gaurav Khanna · physics · Playstation 3 · Sony

Taking Sony Playstation 3s to the Next Level

A few years back I wrote about astrophysicist Gaurav Khanna at University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and his low-cost approach to harnessing computer power for modeling black holes. Why spend a lot of money to rent time on a university supercomputer when you can devise your own by going to Best Buy? The physicist has not… Continue reading Taking Sony Playstation 3s to the Next Level

black holes · cosmology · einstein · Lemaître · Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking: Time to Discard the Event Horizon

It seems like Stephen Hawking has become his own brand these days. For example, my daughter loves to play with the new iPad app: Stephen Hawking’s Snapshots of the Universe. It’s a neat tool for helping kids visualize relativity. And while I don’t think there’s anything wrong with branding, it does tend to reinforce the suspicion… Continue reading Stephen Hawking: Time to Discard the Event Horizon

black holes · relativity

Why the Universe is not a black hole….

Sean Carroll has a nice post explaining why the universe cannot be considered a giant black hole: If there’s any quantitative reasoning behind the question (or claim), it comes from comparing the amount of matter within the observable universe to the radius of the observable universe, and noticing that it looks a lot like the… Continue reading Why the Universe is not a black hole….