“Is our universe extremely unnatural, a weird permutation among countless other possibilities, observed for no other reason than that its special conditions allowed life to arise, or, are the properties of the universe are inevitable, predictable, that is, ‘natural,’ locking together into a sensible pattern?” This is the question, the great unknown, that preoccupies theoretical physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, N.J.
Avi Shporer, Research Scientist, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. A Google Scholar, Avi was formerly a NASA Sagan Fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). His motto, not surprisingly, is a quote from Carl Sagan: “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”
Today’s “Insomnia File” episode offers two stories of cosmic insight. The first is about ”An Accident More Complex than the Universe” from former astrophysicist and hard science-fiction author Alastair Reynolds, who’s epiphany is found in his novel , Blue Remembered Earth — first of a trilogy which follows humanity’s development over many centuries and Paul Davies, The Demon in the Machine.
Venus Could Have Been Habitable and Radically Different from the Planet We See Today
The Death of Mars (YouTube Episode)
Why are NASA Spaceships Exploring Earth’s Deepest Oceans to Is Reality a Wavefunction? (Planet Earth Report)
Harvard Astronomers on the ‘Detective Story’ of a 1,000-Light-Year-Wide Bubble Surrounding Earth 
Extraterrestrial Contact Paradox to Antimatter Stars of the Milky Way (The Galaxy Report)
Supervoids of the Universe – Mystery of the Vast CMB Cold Spot 
“Beautiful and Dangerous Physics” -First Wolf-Rayet Star System to be Discovered in the Milky Way
One of the Last Great Mysteries of the Early Universe
Astrophysicist Reflects on Implications of Contact with an Advanced CivilizationBefore the Big Bang to the Search for Life Not as We Know It (The Galaxy Report-Weekend Feature)
