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Do aliens converse the identical physics that we do, with related legal guidelines, observables, and underlying arithmetic. Maybe not, argues Daniel Whiteson.
This picture exhibits the quilt of Dr. Daniel Whiteson’s and Andy Warner’s latest guide, Do Aliens Speak Physics? And Other Questions About Science and the Nature of Reality, which debuted on November 4, 2025!
Key Takeaways
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When it involves the character of actuality, one of the profound realizations that people have had is that the legal guidelines of physics, the elemental legal guidelines governing nature, look like equivalent in all places and always. -
But if our personal biology had been very completely different, or our surroundings had been very completely different, maybe our senses, perceptions, and what we’d deduce because the legal guidelines or guidelines governing actuality can be very completely different, too. -
In this back-and-forth dialog, Dr. Daniel Whiteson and I change views about what aliens may understand as “reality” and the way completely different it could possibly be from our personal. Do aliens converse physics? Perhaps, however maybe their physics can be barely recognizable to us!
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One of the nice discoveries to be made on the market within the grand scheme of issues is alien life: the primary detection of life that originated, survives, and continues to reside past our own residence planet of Earth. An even grander objective that many people have, together with scientists and laypersons alike, is to seek out not simply life, however an instance of clever extraterrestrials: aliens which can be able to interstellar communication, interstellar journey, and even of assembly us, bodily, on our personal planet. It’s an interesting dream that has been with humanity since we first started considering the celebrities and planets past our personal world.
Most of us, together with me, personally, have assumed that this latter sort of alien wouldn’t solely be extra technologically superior than we’re, however would even be way more scientifically superior as properly. That not solely would they perceive the whole lot we presently do in regards to the elementary legal guidelines of physics, however way more: that they’d be a possible supply of recent data for us, having equaled or exceeded the whole lot we’d already gleaned from our investigative endeavors. And that assumption, as compelling because it may be, could be completely in error, argues physicist and writer Dr. Daniel Whiteson.
That’s why I’m so happy to convey you this latest episode of the Starts With A Bang podcast, the place Daniel and I meet to debate this very matter, with me taking the facet of my very own human-centered assumptions and Daniel taking a much more broad, philosophical, and cosmic method: the identical method he takes in his new guide, Do Aliens Speak Physics? And Other Questions About Science and the Nature of Reality. Have a hearken to this fascinating dialog, see which set of arguments you discover extra compelling, and take a look at his guide. You gained’t be disillusioned!
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Travel the universe with Dr. Ethan Siegel as he solutions the largest questions of all.
Physicist Daniel Whiteson challenges the notion that each one clever species would finally uncover the identical legal guidelines of nature. Do you agree?
Our Sun solely arose after 9.2 billion years of cosmic historical past: with many stars residing and dying first. How many prior generations had been there?
Proposed over 2000 years in the past by Democritus, the phrase atom actually means uncuttable. Revived in 1803, at present’s “atoms” can certainly be cut up.
Big Think spoke with astronomer David Kipping about technosignatures, “extragalactic SETI,” and being a preferred science communicator within the YouTube age.
Just as a result of a paper passes peer overview doesn’t imply that what’s written, or what the writer asserts, is true. Here’s why it nonetheless issues.
We’ve now detected a whole bunch of gravitational waves with LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA. What if we tried Weber’s unique technique within the modern-day?
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