Image of ‘Oumuamua passing through the solar system NASA/European Southern Observatory/M. Grain Fair
Below is an excerpt from the Lost in Space-Time newsletter. Each month, one or he hands two physicists a keyboard and presents an interesting idea from their corner of the universe. You can sign up for Lost in Space-Time for free here.
Imaginary reality is an addictive psychiatric drug. These belief systems can relieve the frustrations brought on by actual reality and, like physical medicine, can ease pain or make difficult situations more tolerable. can bring communities together with shared spiritual beliefs or lead to terrorism and hatred. If that need is to demonstrate mathematical virtuosity with minimal constraints from the physical world, the imagined reality may contain extra dimensions or multiverses. If the need is to be liked on social media, this could include promoting populist views.
Science is full of imaginary realities. Nature is his one version of many possible realities. The scientific method pioneered by Galileo Galilei requires an independent arbiter to help make sense of reality, the experimental data. Such data often help limit the range of possibilities and bring us closer to the real world. Truth and beauty are not always the same. To find the truth, we must submit to experimental evidence and give up wishful thinking. But putting your wishful thinking head under the data guillotine is stubbornly difficult for most people, whether they’re in politics, spirituality, or science.
The most striking example in science is the evidence that the prevailing paradigm is an imagined reality. There was an idea that the sun was made of the same material as the earth, but Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin realized that the sun is mostly made of hydrogen. The chairman of her PhD committee, Henry Norris Her Russell, tried to dissuade her from including this statement in her thesis. So was the idea that the universe is made of the same material as the sun, until Fritz Zwicky realized that the dominant component was dark matter, his findings being recognized by mainstream astronomers as he was 40 years old. ridiculed for years. And the notion of causality in classical physics was like this until quantum mechanical entanglement was realized. Albert Einstein resisted this as “a far-fetched macabre act.”
It may also be the same idea that interstellar objects are nothing more than natural rocks, like icebergs of hydrogen and nitrogen. Or maybe this is another imaginary reality that collapses.
The Galileo project, led by me, is ready to reveal it. Just as the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) used solid-state science to scan the universe and listen for potential electromagnetic signals that could indicate advanced extraterrestrial life, so did the Galileo project. It does the same thing, but focuses on physical objects.
Our plan is divided into two complementary research areas. First, we want to better understand unexplained surface phenomena (UAPs). The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has collected hundreds of UAP examples, but has been able to explain only a few of them. Next, we investigate the origin of interstellar objects (ISOs), which are different from ordinary asteroids and comets. When ‘Oumuamua, the first interstellar object detected during a transit through our solar system, was discovered in 2017, it quickly became clear that it was unlike anything we’d seen before. Its shape, trajectory, and reflectivity were all particularly unusual. But in the short time our telescopes were able to see it, very little data was collected on it.
In the spirit of scientists like Payne-Gaposchkin and Zwicky, our Galileo project is collecting new data. When the next ‘Oumuamua-like object appears, we plan to acquire high-resolution images of it.
for proof love
We will also soon conduct an expedition to retrieve fragments of the first interstellar meteor near Papua New Guinea. CNEOS 2014-01-08 exploded in the Bismarck Sea about 200 kilometers north of Manus Island in 2014. Small pieces less than 1mm should have fallen to the seabed. You spend ten days collecting them using a sleigh equipped with magnets, cameras and lights. If successful, we will have the first fragments of an interstellar object. We carefully analyze them and share the data with the scientific community. This data could shatter many imagined realities.
An imaginary reality can consume the room’s oxygen. When Galileo challenged the imagined reality of a geocentric world, he was placed under house arrest. The best way to preserve our sanity is, first and foremost, to follow experimental tests as a guide. Physics is a learning experience, not a monologue but a dialogue with nature. Our love of nature is neither abstract nor platonic, but based on direct physical interaction with nature.
Nature is not obliged to satisfy our emotional needs. Feeling lonely doesn’t mean you have neighbors. But instead of endlessly repeating Enrico Fermi’s “Where’s everyone?” question, you can check if your neighbors are there by looking out the window. Nor is nature obligated to satisfy our intellectual needs. Understanding the most important insight about nature—whether we are alone as a sentient species among the stars—may not require sophisticated mathematical gymnastics. Just look up.
Our ego can lead us to ignore facts that don’t flatter us. But in reality, the Earth moves around the Sun, and the Sun moves around the center of the Milky Way, moving away from all other galaxies at an accelerating rate. We stood on stage at the end of the space drama. You’d be better off finding another actor to tell you what the play is about.
The quest for scientific knowledge should not be directed only at us. It is about understanding the reality around us. Our starting point should be intellectual curiosity driven and humility based on what we have already learned. You go down this road as a child, but when you grow up and pretend you know more than you actually do, something goes wrong.
At the time, no one was more expert on stars than Henry Norris Russell. No one was more expert in quantum mechanics than Albert Einstein. But both were completely wrong about fundamental aspects of their technology. Both promoted an imagined reality supported by the mainstream community. To learn something new, you have to maintain the sense of wonder that you have had since childhood. Evidence leads to a better relationship with reality. Regardless of our story, climate change will happen if we do nothing to fix it. boils all the oceans on earth.
Acceptance of experimental data mediation is a survival mechanism. Natural selection favors those who adapt to the real world. The world’s dinosaurs have disappeared because they are not humble enough to search the blue skies for new evidence of the existential risks they face in actual reality.
AviLoeb, Director of the Galileo Project, Extraterrestrial Life: First Signs of Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life.
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