The FBI started spying on renowned German-born scientist Albert Einstein when he moved to America in 1933, shortly before Adolf Hitler rose to power. Agents listened to the physicist‘s phone calls and searched his mail and trash, suspecting he was a Soviet spy. The surveillance, totalling 1,800 pages, ended with Einstein‘s death on April 18, 1955, with no supporting evidence.
Daily Archives: 1. Juli 2023
Giant gravitational waves: why scientists are so excited
On 29 June, four separate teams of scientists made an announcement1–4 that promises to shake up astrophysics: they had seen strong hints of very long gravitational waves warping the Galaxy.
Gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of space-time that are generated when large masses accelerate. They were first detected in 2015, but the latest evidence hints at ‘monster’ ripples with wavelengths of 0.3 parsecs (1 light year) or more; the waves detected until now have wavelengths of tens to hundreds of kilometres.
Here Nature reports what these monster gravitational waves could mean for our understanding of the cosmos, and how the field could evolve.
The Cosmos Is Thrumming With Gravitational Waves, Astronomers Find
(June 28, 2023)
The scientists strongly suspect that these gravitational waves are the collective echo of pairs of supermassive black holes — thousands of them, some as massive as a billion suns, sitting at the hearts of ancient galaxies up to 10 billion light-years away — as they slowly merge and generate ripples in space-time.
“I like to think of it as a choir, or an orchestra,” said Xavier Siemens, a physicist at Oregon State University who is part of the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves, or NANOGrav, collaboration, which led the effort. Each pair of supermassive black holes is generating a different note, Dr. Siemens said, “and what we’re receiving is the sum of all those signals at once.”
Searching for the Nano-Hertz Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background with the Chinese Pulsar Timing Array Data Release I
(Published 29 June 2023)
Observing and timing a group of millisecond pulsars with high rotational stability enables the direct detection of gravitational waves (GWs). The GW signals can be identified from the spatial correlations encoded in the times-of-arrival of widely spaced pulsar-pairs. The Chinese Pulsar Timing Array (CPTA) is a collaboration aiming at the direct GW detection with observations carried out using Chinese radio telescopes. This short article serves as a „table of contents“ for a forthcoming series of papers related to the CPTA Data Release 1 (CPTA DR1) which uses observations from the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope. (…)
A Pulsar Timing Array (PTA; Foster & Backer 1990) is an array of pulsars, which are regularly observed. The times-of-arrival (TOAs) are measured for pulses that we see beams of electromagnetic waves emitted by the pulsars sweeping over the Earth. As the directions of the radiation beam and the pulsar rotational axis do not coincide, we observe this radiation as regular pulses synchronized to the pulsar rotation (Gold 1969).
Everything you thought you knew about gravity is wrong
(02.08.2019)
We don’t know what gravity is.
Say that to the average person, and the answer you’ll probably get is some version of: “What are you talking about? Gravity is the force of attraction that makes things fall straight down.” But say it to a physicist, and the answer you’ll get is, “That’s right.”
I know, because those are the two answers I’ve been getting for the past few years, ever since I figured out that nobody knows what gravity is, and that just about nobody knows that nobody knows what gravity is. The exception is physicists: They know that nobody knows what gravity is, because they know that they don’t know what gravity is.
About the nature of gravitational and gravity waves
(March 20, 2018)
Gravitational waves, which Albert Einstein predicted in 1916.2 were a riddle until 14 September 2015. Gravitational waves are small deformations of the four dimensional space–time geometry. They propagate with the speed of light and they are generated by catastrophic events in the Universe, in which strong gravitational fields and sudden acceleration (or deceleration) of asymmetric distribution of large masses are involved. In the other words, according to the theory of relativity, any accelerating or decelerating massive object that isn’t spherically or cylindrically symmetrical generates detectable gravitational waves. That object could be for example neutron star or black hole binary system. Gravitational waves are also produced by cosmological explosions such as supernova. Gravity is the weakest of the four fundamental forces, it is known for a very long time, but still there is no a good unique gravity force (field) theory.
Roberts scolds liberal justices for demonizing rulings they don‘t like: ‚Disturbing feature‘ of dissents
„It has become a disturbing feature of some recent opinions to criticize the decisions with which they disagree as going beyond the proper role of the judiciary,“ Roberts wrote. He said the majority came to its decision by adhering to court precedent „old and new“ that „requires that Congress speak clearly before a Department Secretary can unilaterally alter large sections of the American economy.“
Kagan says the Supreme Court risks becoming ‚a danger to a democratic order‘ after it axed Biden‘s student loan forgiveness plan
Kagan in a scorching dissent argued that the court itself overstepped its bounds and by doing so is barreling to a future where it is the „maker of national policy“ by failing to defer to President Joe Biden and Congress to set the national agenda.
„That is no proper role for a court,“ Kagan wrote. „And it is a danger to a democratic order.“ (…)
The chief justice agreed with Kagan that the case is about a branch of government overstepping its authority, but Roberts remained steadfast in his view that it was the executive branch.
Is Student Loan Forgiveness By Executive Order Legal?
(June 30, 2023)
Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) want President Joe Biden to forgive $50,000 in federal student loans per borrower. They claim that he can do this unilaterally through executive order.
(…)
The $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief plan proposed by President Biden does not include any student loan forgiveness.
Swisscows – Anonymous Search Engine
Why is the private search engine Swisscows against surveillance?
Our vision is that every user can be online without fear of surveillance, annoying advertising and unwanted data storage. We have been working towards this goal for over 20 years. Fortunately, data security has now become a relevant topic and many people have understood what all happens to their data completely without their knowledge.
Gibiru – uncensored private search
Zero retargeting
You’ll never be solicited to buy item you have already purchased. We don’t log your searches, IP address or place cookies on your computer. This means there is not data to sell to advertisers or to use to retarget you.
How do I search Mastodon?
The search box is found about the new Toot box. You can only search for #hashtags and @usernames. You cannot search for plain text contained within Toots. If you enter plain text, search will only return any #hashtags or @usernames that natch the search text.
Twitter Blocks People From Seeing Tweets Unless Registered
Twitter has long relied on the accessibility of its tweets around the web to drive interest in the site — for instance, through users sending tweets to friends or contacts who don’t have accounts.
Elon Musk Hires Prolific Hacker George Hotz To Fix Twitter Search
(November 23, 2022)
In the span of a 12-week internship, Hotz promises to “fix” Twitter search and introduce all-new features, such as the ability to search within liked tweets.
As the first person in the world to jailbreak the iPhone, Hotz is no stranger to bringing new capabilities to existing platforms.
Elon Musk: The US Government, Intelligence Agencies Had Access To Twitter Backdoor, Ability To Spy On Direct Messages
(Apr 17, 2023)
“The degree to which government agencies effectively had full access to everything that was going on on Twitter blew my mind,” Musk told Carlson. “I was not aware of that.”
Revealed: Google and Facebook DID allow NSA access to data and were in talks to set up ‚spying rooms‘ despite denials by Zuckerberg and Page over PRISM project
(8 June 2013)
Meanwhile, Twitter is one company which has managed to keep mum in PRISM discussions.
NSA Prism program taps in to user data of Apple, Google and others
(7 Jun 2013)
The Guardian has verified the authenticity of the document, a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation – classified as top secret with no distribution to foreign allies – which was apparently used to train intelligence operatives on the capabilities of the program. The document claims „collection directly from the servers“ of major US service providers.
Although the presentation claims the program is run with the assistance of the companies, all those who responded to a Guardian request for comment on Thursday denied knowledge of any such program.
Twitter Blocking Access to Users Who Aren’t Logged In as an ‘Emergency Measure,’ Elon Musk Says
Many people were confused about the change, wondering whether it was a glitch or a purposeful move on the part of Twitter, which is under the control of mega-billionaire Elon Musk. Previously, you could search Twitter and view tweets without needing a registered account. But now, visiting any Twitter page displays a log-in prompt instead.
Musk, in a post Friday afternoon, claimed that Twitter took the step to improve performance on the platform after third-party companies were “scraping” data and overloading its systems.
Ich fühle mich begafft
Jetzt lässt sich im Detail nachlesen, was im Prinzip schon lange bekannt ist. Die Meta-Töchter Instagram und Facebook erfassen und verarbeiten so ziemlich alles, was Menschen auf ihren Plattformen machen. Daraus berechnen sie Prognosen über unser Verhalten.
Meta erklärt das auf einer neuen Infoseite, geordnet nach 22 Bereichen wie Facebook-Benachrichtigungen, Facebook-Feed, Instagram-Stories, Instagram-Reels. Für jeden Bereich berechnen Algorithmen ein Bündel aus Prognosen und werten teils dutzende Datenpunkte aus. Passend zum aktuellen KI-Hype spricht Meta von „KI-Systemen“.
France riots: 45,000 police, armoured vehicles deployed to quell unrest
The government deployed 45,000 police and several armoured vehicles overnight to tackle the worst crisis of President Emmanuel Macron‘s leadership since the Yellow Vest protests.
France‘s interior ministry said that 994 people had been arrested, compared with 875 the previous night, in violence which it said on Twitter was „lower in intensity“.
Fourth night of violence in France after deadly police shooting of teen
04:45am: 471 arrested nationwide during Friday night‘s unrest
The French Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin has announced that 471 Individuals have been arrested so far during the riots on Friday night but that the violence was “much less intense” than previous nights in most areas. Both Marseilles and Lyon were reportedly hotspots for unrest on Friday night.
03:40am: Nahel‘s family asks for their privacy to be respected at the funeral on Saturday
The family of Nahel M. have requested that journalists and the public stay away from the funeral scheduled to take place in Nanterre on Saturday.