Tag: Albert Einstein

Commentary: The Intelligence of Canines

RealClearWire
Dog lying on magazine with glasses on

Albert Einstein. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Marie Curie. Gaia. The first person came up with the general theory of relativity. The second is regarded as perhaps the greatest classical composer of all time. The third is the only person to win the Nobel Prize in two scientific fields. The fourth isn’t a person at all; it’s a dog.

All might be considered geniuses.

Some individuals are supremely gifted, with abilities that the vast majority of people cannot hope to replicate even after years of dedicated practice – the adolescents who are chess grandmasters, the musicians with perfect pitch, the professional athletes who make their colleagues look like amateurs. Scientists have been studying these people for decades, hoping to uncover genetic, environmental, or social underpinnings for their talents. Researchers have yet to find satisfactory answers.

Which brings us to dogs.

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Commentary: If You Believe in Science, Individual Freedom Is the Only Answer

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So you believe in science, eh? Excellent! So do I! Well, let me clarify. I don’t “believe” in science; I accept there is reality and this “science-way” of thinking has proven itself the best method for discovering this reality. What you or I believe has no impact on this reality.

And what of this reality? How can we discover it to ensure our continued success and even our continued survival?

Isaac Newton was one of the most influential scientists of all time. He was a titan of his time and a key figure in the culmination of the scientific revolution. His Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica is perhaps the most influential book in all of science.

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Black Hole Photo Confirms Einstein’s Theory of Relativity

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by Kevin Pimbblet   Black holes are long-time superstars of science fiction. But their Hollywood fame is a little strange given that no-one has ever actually seen one – at least, until now. If you needed to see to believe, then thank the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), which has just produced the first ever direct image of a black hole. This amazing feat required global collaboration to turn the Earth into one giant telescope and image an object thousands of trillions of kilometres away. As stunning and ground-breaking as it is, the EHT project is not just about taking on a challenge. It’s an unprecedented test of whether Einstein’s ideas about the very nature of space and time hold up in extreme circumstances, and looks closer than ever before at the role of black holes in the universe. To cut a long story short: Einstein was right. Capturing the uncapturable A black hole is a region of space whose mass is so large and dense that not even light can escape its gravitational attraction. Against the black backdrop of the inky beyond, capturing one is a near impossible task. But thanks to Stephen Hawking’s groundbreaking work, we know that the colossal…

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Einstein Was Right: Astronomers Confirm Key Theory

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galaxy

A consortium of astronomers said Thursday they had for the first time confirmed a prediction of Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity by observing the gravitational effects of a supermassive black hole on a star zipping by it. The German-born theoretical physicist had posited that large gravitational forces could stretch light, much like the compression and stretching of sound waves we perceive with the change of pitch of a passing train. Researchers from the GRAVITY consortium led by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics realized that they had a “perfect laboratory” to test Einstein’s theory with the Sagittarius A* black hole in the center of the Milky Way. Black holes are so dense that their gravitational pull can trap even light, and the supermassive Sagittarius A* has mass four million times that of our sun, making it the biggest in our galaxy. Astronomers followed the S2 star as it passed close to the black hole on May 19 at a speed in excess of 25 million kilometers (15.5 million miles) per hour. They then calculated its velocity and position using a number of instruments and compared it with predictions made by Einstein that the light would be stretched by…

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