Category Archives: History
The road to quantum gravity (3): The speed of light and the origin of mass
In the previous chapter of this series, we went over the subjective, relative separation of the network of events known as Spacetime into space and time. The speed of light played a major role in the discussion.
In particular, we […]
The spreading of science news, from Arthur Eddington (1919) to black holes (2019).
Author: Jaume Navarro is an Ikerbasque Research Professor at the University of the Basque Country
On April 10th 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope project released the first image ever of a black hole. Five simultaneous press conferences, […]
The Road to Quantum Gravity (2): The emergence of Space and Time
The division of past and future
In Part 1 of this series, we presented the empirical fact that under extreme circumstances, a certain observer’s past can be in another observer’s future. To explain this, we introduced the network of […]
The road to quantum gravity (1): Spacetime as the network of causality
Observations vs intuitions
Einstein’s Theory of Relativity introduced us to the concept of Spacetime, as a unified entity. This stands in contrast with the intuition that we develop since birth, which leads to naturally separate space and time.
Human intuition […]
How Buddha became a Christian saint
As I mentioned in passing in my last entry, many, if not most, of the oldest stories about Christian martyrs and saints are nothing but legendary fabrications, something that scholars knew perfectly well since at least the time of […]
From Constantine to Justinian: the triumph of Christian ‘terrorism’
One book that has caused much stir in the past months is Catherine Nixey’s The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World. I confess I approached the book with some skepticism, for ‘the classical world’, I thought, […]
The Enlightenment wars (& 3): but...what kind of humanism do we need?
In the two previous entries (1, 2) of this series I described the different diagnoses that Marina Garcés and Steven Pinker make of humanity’s current predicament, without concealing my sympathies for the latter’s: with up […]
Ordinary experience vs. quantum experience
We usually think of nature as existing completely independently of us and possessing a definite reality and behaviour even when we are not observing it. For instance, you assume that the world outside of the place where you are now […]
The Enlightenment wars (2): the details
Are we in the best of the times, as Steven Pinker asserts? Or do we live in a ‘posthumous’ society, to say it with the favourite image of Marina Garcés? As I told in the previous entry, it is […]
The Enlightenment wars (1): progress or decline?
Keep in mind the word Enlightenment, because it’s very likely that it will be one of the most fashionable concepts within the next months. At a global level, Steven Pinker’s new book, Enlightenment now, will probably carry the […]