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Uncovering secrets of the universe
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The 500-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), or the “Eye of Heaven” as it’s known in China, has discovered 44 new pulsars since it was installed in southwest China’s Guizhou Province in 2016. The observation of pulsars is one of the ways to confirm the existence of gravitational radiation, through which dark matters and dark forces such as black holes can be detected.
Joseph Taylor Jr, 1993 Nobel laureate in physics, was the first to discover binary pulsars and to provide the evidence for the existence of gravitational waves. He has high hopes that FAST will help scientists make more accurate observations in order to build a more detailed cosmological model.
For decades, the big bang theory has long been the prevailing cosmological model of the universe, but scientists have been struggling to work out the details.
“Ninety-five percent of the universe is still unknown, what we call dark matter and dark energy,” Adam Riess, 2011 Nobel laureate in physics, told Shanghai Daily.
“It’s a good basic model, but many parts of it are still unfilled. For example, what happened at the beginning of the big bang remains a mystery today, and what we desire to understand.”
The two frontiers of astrophysics, he added, are trying to detect aliens, and working out how fast the universe is expanding. There is no lack of alien/UFO-spotting alerts across the world, though it has never been proved. Many wonder: Are we alone and if not, where are the others?
“Life is likely to exist on many galaxies, but we haven’t found any aliens yet,” said David Gross, 2004 Nobel laureate in physics.
“We have been looking and nothing is found, which might suggest that advanced intelligent technological life like ours may not survive long enough to populate a galaxy. So my conclusion is that if we manage to survive as a species on Earth for another 10,000 years, which is short compared with universe, then we will start populating the galaxy.”
As for “we” here, Gross doesn’t refer to the human beings as we are today, since he expects a much accelerated voluntary evolution process to take place, such as genetic modifications or integrating with artificial intelligence. Gross isn’t too optimistic about whether human beings or the alternative species could survive that long.
“I’m most concerned about us surviving for another 100 years,” he said. “There are just too many dangers today, the nuclear weapons, the climate changes, the environmental pollution, etc. It’s important to realize all the dangers, because human beings are often not thinking very far ahead.”
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