May 3, 2013

Today’s Big Idea: The Laws of Nature

“Why is the mass of the electron what it is and not 12 times larger or half the size?”

“Why is the mass of the electron what it is and not 12 times larger or half the size?”

Lee Smolin asks this and many other questions in today’s lesson, which explores not only what the laws of nature are, but why are they what they are?

Furthermore, if an experiment is conducted 10 years from now or 10 billion years from now we expect that it should yield the same results. “So why do we expect to get an outcome in the future the same as in the past?” Smolin asks. Because the same law of nature is acting. But this is a very bizarre idea if you believe that there’s nothing that’s real outside of time.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

Up Next

You Have Free Will, But You Might Not Be Aware

We have reason to believe that some aspects of free will you are not consciously aware of. I don’t think that necessarily means that you’re not free, but you’re not consciously aware of it.