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Can We Break the Universe?

Season 7 Episode 5 | 12m 32s

We delve into a couple of the most famous paradoxes of special relativity: the Twin Paradox, The Ladder Paradox (aka the Barn-Pole Paradox), and a paradox suggested by our very own viewers, which asks whether a spaceship could wrap around the universe & destroy itself. We’ll explore these paradoxes and see why, against our intuition, the universe really does work in this seemingly nonsensical way.

Aired: 01/18/21
Extras
The Higgs boson may open a portal to hidden particles that could explain dark matter.
The universe expands faster. “Dark energy” may not be constant after all.
There’s a new generation of experiments that may unlock the gravity particle.
The universe thrums with quantum fields, except something may be missing: the sterile neutrino.
Gravitons, the particle of quantum gravity, may be impossible to detect.
We go in depth on black holes: the strangest objects in the universe!
2025 was the international year of quantum science, but today we examine its origins.
We’ve found lots of “habitable” worlds but we don’t know what factors are needed for life.
What is the graviton, and does it even exist?
Does quantum mechanics allow the future to retroactively influence the past or not?
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The Higgs boson may open a portal to hidden particles that could explain dark matter.
The universe expands faster. “Dark energy” may not be constant after all.
There’s a new generation of experiments that may unlock the gravity particle.
The universe thrums with quantum fields, except something may be missing: the sterile neutrino.
Gravitons, the particle of quantum gravity, may be impossible to detect.
2025 was the international year of quantum science, but today we examine its origins.
We’ve found lots of “habitable” worlds but we don’t know what factors are needed for life.
What is the graviton, and does it even exist?
Does quantum mechanics allow the future to retroactively influence the past or not?
Antimatter drives sound like science fiction, but they may not be as far as you think.