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COSMOLOGY
Featured Story
History
Story
Chapter 1 Quote Attribution Clarification
Sagan, Tyson, et al!
Great ideas often exist before and beyond any single speaker. The insight that humans are biologically, chemically, and atomically connected to the universe appears across science and philosophy, voiced by thinkers in different ways.
Featured Quote
Science
Quote
“We are all connected to each other biologically, to the Earth chemically, and to the rest of the universe atomically.”
- Carl Sagan
- circa 1980
We Are Stardust
Carl Sagan had many similar quotes to this.
Carl Sagan reminds us that we are intimately connected to the universe. The particles that form our bodies are borrowed from a cosmic pool of just 17 particles and four forces. Even more humbling, the molecules within us were forged in the hearts of stars, linking us directly to the vast cosmos that surrounds us.
Featured FAQ
Updated This Week
Science
FAQ
Will the universe end in an ever-expanding cold isolated death?
Big Bang
Cosmologists model the universe using three models: the eternally expanding Big Freeze, the runaway expanding Big Rip, or the recycling Big Crunch. The leading framework, Lambda Cold Dark Matter, best fits current data. It points toward endless expansion because gravity is not strong enough to stop it.
Cosmology
The Universe
Our origin story.
The universe is a self-reconfiguring machine, with nothing being created from the void nor destroyed to nothing. At the core of reality are four forces guiding 17+ particles. We see these particles combine into atoms and molecules. Those molecules bundle into materials, and those materials evolve into life.
The Fermi Paradox is Too Anthropocentric
The Fermi Paradox is the common framework for thinking about the odds of alien life, but we need more data before it can become accurate enough to be useful.
Speculative Ideas in Science: Rip-Bang, Bigfoot, and Beyond
Speculation has a real place in science, but speculative ideas are not established truths. They are starting points, possibilities, or failed guesses that must eventually ...
The Universe Before the Telescope
Before instruments extended our vision, the universe was understood through naked-eye observation—the Sun, Moon, and five wandering planets set against a backdrop of stars that ...
Must-Reads
Big Bang
The End of the Universe Explained
We do not know the ultimate fate of the universe, but the leading ideas are that it expands forever, collapses and starts over, or ends ...
Astronomy
The Expanding Universe Explained
ΛCDM remains the leading cosmological model because our current best measurements indicate gravity is not strong enough to stop the universe’s expansion.
New Ideas
Physics
The Islands-of-Universes Idea
We often talk as if our universe is a self-contained whole, but beyond the limits of observation, we simply do not know what else may ...
Physics
Cosmocycles: A Proposed Cosmic Calendar Based on Cyclic Universe Model
If some version of the Big Crunch model ever returns to favor, we can picture one full cosmic cycle, a kind of cosmic year. Cosmocycles ...
Updated ARTICLES
Cosmology | Philosophy of Science | Unification
Speculative Ideas in Science: Rip-Bang, Bigfoot, and Beyond
Idea Theory Framework
Speculation has a real place in science, but speculative ideas are not established truths. They are starting points, possibilities, or failed guesses that must eventually be supported, revised, or discarded.
Wed 5 Jun 2024
(2 years ago)
Updated 1 day ago.
Cognitive Biases | Cosmology | Futurism | Live well. | Think well.
The Fermi Paradox is Too Anthropocentric
Fermi Paradox
The Fermi Paradox is the common framework for thinking about the odds of alien life, but we need more data before it can become accurate enough to be useful.
Sun 29 Dec 2024
(1 year ago)
Updated 1 day ago.
Astronomy | H1-Prehistory | Tech
The Universe Before the Telescope
Astronomy
Before instruments extended our vision, the universe was understood through naked-eye observation—the Sun, Moon, and five wandering planets set against a backdrop of stars that sometimes fell.
Thu 11 Apr 2024
(2 years ago)
Updated 2 months ago.