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Cosmic Transmissions (Winter, 2022) Cosmic Transmissions (Winter, 2022)
Science

Cosmic Transmissions (Winter, 2022)

Łukasz Kaniewski
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time 7 minutes
Łukasz Kaniewski:
He writes about space, which is where he lives. He has mess on his desk (and likes to rhyme all the time). He uses public transport.

Drones and Drollery

The most recent report presented by the United States Department of Defense regarding unidentified flying objects can be summarized in one word: disappointment. American specialists decided that the majority of vehicles reportedly sent by alien civilizations are in fact Chinese drones, weather balloons, or even optical illusions.

This also concerns the incident known as GOFAST. Two pilots in F-18 fighter planes encountered a mysterious object over the Pacific; its speed and agility far exceeded that of the newest American aircraft. One of the pilots even confessed: “I want to fly one.” Closer investigation of the event has now made it possible to calculate that this wondrous machine was traveling at thirty miles per hour, and its swiftness and maneuverability were just an illusion. The pilot who spontaneously expressed his desire to “fly one” will need to reconsider the rash declaration.

The Department

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Łukasz Kaniewski:
He writes about space, which is where he lives. He has mess on his desk (and likes to rhyme all the time). He uses public transport.
Translation: Marta Dziurosz
Publish date: 09.12.2022

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Cosmic Transmissions (Autumn, 2021) Cosmic Transmissions (Autumn, 2021)
i
Drawing by Marek Raczkowski
Outer Space

Cosmic Transmissions (Autumn, 2021)

Łukasz Kaniewski
Łukasz Kaniewski:
He writes about space, which is where he lives. He has mess on his desk (and likes to rhyme all the time). He uses public transport.

The universe in a bottle

Juan Maldacena is in many ways the antithesis of Albert Einstein. He doesn’t have a mop of hair. He’s not a pop culture icon. He doesn’t stick his tongue out for photos. What’s more, his study and desk are perfectly, ascetically tidy. Actually, the only thing that connects Maldacena and Einstein is theoretical physics – and the fact that they both imagined the universe anew.

The universe in a bottle – the idea emerged in Juan Maldacena’s head in 1997, as he was sitting at his empty desk and thinking. Within that bottle, described by equations, we have the world with three dimensions of space and working gravity. But that interior is, in fact, a projection of what happens on the two-dimensional surface of the bottle: a hologram. It’s not about the world being a simulation, but rather that fundamentally, we could describe it better, and more simply, if we assumed it has two dimensions.

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