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All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'New Scientist articles' and 'Letters to Burcher De Volder'

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53 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 5. Reason for Existence
Current physics says matter and antimatter should have reduced to light at the big bang [New Sci.]
     Full Idea: Our best theories of physics imply we shouldn't be here. The big bang ought to have produced equal amounts of matter and antimatter particles, which would have almost immediately annihilated each other, leaving nothing but light.
     From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2015.05.23)
     A reaction: This is not, of course, a rejection of physics, but a puzzle about the current standard model of physics.
CP violation shows a decay imbalance in matter and antimatter, leading to matter's dominance [New Sci.]
     Full Idea: The phenomenon of charge-parity (CP) violation says that under certain circumstances antiparticles decay at different rates from their matter counterpart. ...This might explain matter's dominance in the universe, but the effect is too small.
     From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2015.05.23)
     A reaction: Physicists are currently studying CP violations, hoping to explain why there is any matter in the universe. This will not, I presume, explain why matter and antimatter arrived in the first place.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 6. Fundamentals / c. Monads
Monads are not extended, but have a kind of situation in extension [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Even if monads are not extended, they nonetheless have a certain kind of situation in extension.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1703.06.20), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 8
     A reaction: This is the kind of metaphysical mess you get into if you start from the wrong premisses (in this case, a dualism of the spiritual and the material). Later (Garber p.359) he says they are situated because they 'preside' over a mass.
Only monads are substances, and bodies are collections of them [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: A monad alone is a substance; a body is substances not a substance.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704.01.21), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 8
     A reaction: So how many monads in a drop of urine, as Voltaire bluntly wondered. I take the Cartesian dualism (without interaction) that ran through Leibniz's career to be the source of most of his metaphysical problems. In late career it went badly wrong.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 2. Realism
The division of nature into matter makes distinct appearances, and that presupposes substances [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: If there were no divisions of matter in nature, there would be no things that are different; just the mere possibility of things. It is the actual division into masses that really produces things that appear distinct, which presupposes simple substances.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704 or 1705)
     A reaction: This shows Leibniz to be a straightforward realist about the physical world, and certainly not an 'idealist', despite the mind-like character of monads. I take this to be an argument for reality from best explanation, which is all that's available.
The only indications of reality are agreement among phenomena, and their agreement with necessities [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: We don't have, nor should we hope for, any mark of reality in phenomena, but the fact that they agree with one another and with eternal truths.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1706.01.19)
     A reaction: Elsewhere he says that divisions in appearance imply divisions in matter. Now he adds two further arguments in favour of realism, but admits that nothing conclusive is available. Quite right.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 3. Reality
Only unities have any reality [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: There is no reality in anything except the reality of unities.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704.06.30), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 9
     A reaction: This seems to leave indeterminate stuff like air and water with no reality, as nicely discussed by Henry Laycock. Do we just force unities on the world because that is the only way our minds can cope with it?
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 10. Vagueness / b. Vagueness of reality
In actual things nothing is indefinite [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: In actual things nothing is indefinite.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1706.01.19)
     A reaction: This seems to be the germ of the controversial modern view of Williamson, that vagueness is entirely epistemic, and that the facts of nature are entirely definite. Thus there is a tallest short giraffe, which I find a bit hard to grasp.
8. Modes of Existence / A. Relations / 1. Nature of Relations
A man's distant wife dying is a real change in him [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: No one can become a widower in India because of the death of his wife in Europe unless a real change occurs in him.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], GP ii 240), quoted by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz 7 'Nominalist'
     A reaction: This is Leibniz heroically denying so-called 'Cambridge Change'. It is hard to see how a widower is changed if he has not yet heard the bad news. But his situation in life has changed. Compare eudaimonia, which you can lose without realising it.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 1. Powers
A complete monad is a substance with primitive active and passive power [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: What I take to be the indivisible or complete monad is the substance endowed with primitive power, active and passive, like the 'I' or something similar.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1703.06.20)
     A reaction: I love powers, so I really like this quotation. By this date even Garber thinks that he has more or less arrived at his mature view of monads. I used to think monads were mad, but I now think he is closing in on the right answer - sort of.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 2. Powers as Basic
Derivate forces are in phenomena, but primitive forces are in the internal strivings of substances [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: I relegate derivative forces to the phenomena, but I think that it is clear that primitive forces can be nothing other than the internal strivings of simple substances.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1705.01), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 8
     A reaction: I like 'internal strivings', which sounds to me like the Will to Power (Idea 7140). There seems to be an epistemological challenge in trying to disentangle the derivative forces from the primitive ones.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 4. Powers as Essence
Thought terminates in force, rather than extension [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: I believe that our thought is completed and terminated more in the notion of the dynamic [i.e. force] than in that of extension.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], G II 170), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 4
     A reaction: Presenting this as the place where 'our thought' is 'terminated' seems to place it as mainly having a role in explanation, rather than in speculative metaphysics.
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / b. Individuation by properties
The law of the series, which determines future states of a substance, is what individuates it [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: That there should be a persistent law of the series, which involves the future states of that which we conceive to be the same, is exactly what I say constitutes it as the same substance.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704), quoted by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz 4 'Applying'
     A reaction: The 'law of the series' is a bit dubious, but it is reasonable to say that a substance is individuated by its coherent progress of change over time. Disjointed change would imply an absence of substance. The law of the series is called 'primitive force'.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 1. Objects over Time
Changeable accidents are modifications of unchanging essences [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Everything accidental or changeable ought to be a modification of something essential or perpetual.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704.06.30)
     A reaction: Clear evidence that Leibniz is very much a traditional Aristotelian essentialist, and not as modal logicians tend to characterise him, as a super-essentialist who thinks all properties are essential. They are necessary for identity, but that's different.
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 7. Indiscernible Objects
Things in different locations are different because they 'express' those locations [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Things that differ in place must express their place, that is, they must express the things surrounding, and thus they must be distinguished not only by place, that is, not by an extrinsic denomination alone, as is commonly thought.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1703.06.20)
     A reaction: This is an unusual view, which has some attractions, as it enables the relations of a thing to individuate it, while maintaining that this is a real difference in character.
In nature there aren't even two identical straight lines, so no two bodies are alike [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: In nature any straight line you may take is individually different from any other straight line you may find. Accordingly, it cannot come about that two bodies are perfectly equal and alike.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1703.06.20)
     A reaction: Leibniz was very good at persuasive examples! It remains unclear, though, why he takes the Identity of Indiscernibles to be a necessary truth, when he seems to have only observed it from experience. This is counter to his other principles.
If two bodies only seem to differ in their position, those different environments will matter [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: If two bodies differ only in their position, their individual relations to the environment must be taken into account, so that more is involved in their distinguishability than just position.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1703.06.20)
     A reaction: This seems to allow that two bodies could be intrinsically type-identical (though differing in extrinsic features), which is contrary to his normal view. I suppose a different location in the gravitational field will make an intrinsic difference.
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / b. Pro-coherentism
Scientific truths are supported by mutual agreement, as well as agreement with the phenomena [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Among the most powerful indications of truth belongs the fact that scientific propositions agree with one another as well as with phenomena.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1699.03.24/04.03)
     A reaction: I take this to be the case not only with science, but with all other truths. Leibniz is particularly keen on the interconnectedness of things, so coherence justification suits him especially well. But surely all scientists embrace this idea?
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 4. Prediction
A system can infer the structure of the world by making predictions about it [New Sci.]
     Full Idea: If we can train a system for prediction, it can essentially infer the structure of the world it's looking at by doing this prediction.
     From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2015.12.12)
     A reaction: [AI expert] This seems to be powerful support for the centrality of mathematical laws of nature in achieving understanding of the world. We may downplay the 'mere' ability to predict, but this idea says that the rewards of prediction are very great.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 3. Abstraction by mind
Neural networks can extract the car-ness of a car, or the chair-ness of a chair [New Sci.]
     Full Idea: Early neural nets were really good at recognising general categories, such as a car or a chair. Those networks are good at extracting the 'chair-ness' or the 'car-ness' of the object.
     From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2015.12.12)
     A reaction: [Interview with Yann LeCun, Facebook AI director] Fregean philosophers such as Geach think that extracting features is a ridiculous idea, but if even a machine can do it then I suspect that human beings can (and do) manage it too.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 10. Conatus/Striving
Primitive forces are internal strivings of substances, acting according to their internal laws [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Primitive forces can be nothing but the internal strivings [tendentia] of simple substances, striving by means of which they pass from perception to perception in accordance with a certain law of their nature.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704 or 1705)
     A reaction: 'Perception' sounds a bit crazy, but he usually qualifies that sort of remark by saying that it is an 'analogy' with conscious willing souls. The 'internal strivings of substances' is a nice phrase for the basic powers in nature where explanations stop.
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 1. Dualism
Soul represents body, but soul remains unchanged, while body continuously changes [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: The essence of the soul is to represent bodies. ...The soul and the idea of the body do not signify the same thing. For the soul remains one and the same, while the idea of the body perpetually changes as the body itself changes.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1699.03.24/04.03)
     A reaction: This seems to rest on the Cartesian Ego, as the essence of mind which does not change. And yet elsewhere he describes the Ego as a mere abstraction from introspected mental life.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 5. Rationality / a. Rationality
No one has yet devised a rationality test [New Sci.]
     Full Idea: The financial sector has been clamouring for a rationality test for years.
     From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2013.10.29)
     A reaction: Many aspects of intelligence tests do actually pick out what I would call rationality (which includes 'rational intuition', a new favourite of mine). But they are mixed in with rather mechanical geeky sort of tests.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 7. Intelligence
About a third of variation in human intelligence is environmental [New Sci.]
     Full Idea: Possibly a third of the variation in our intelligence is down to the environment in which we grew up - nutrition and education, for example.
     From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2013.10.29)
     A reaction: This presumably leaves the other two-thirds to derive from genetics. I am a big believer in environment. Swapping babies between extremes of cultural environment would hugely affect intelligence, say I.
People can be highly intelligent, yet very stupid [New Sci.]
     Full Idea: You really can be highly intelligent, and at the same time very stupid.
     From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2013.10.29)
     A reaction: This is closely related to my observation (from a lifetime of study) that a talent for philosophy has a very limited correlation with standard notions of high intelligence. What matters is how conscious reasoning and intuition relate. Greek 'phronesis'.
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 1. Psychology
Psychologists measure personality along five dimensions [New Sci.]
     Full Idea: Psychologists have long thought that measuring on a scale of just five personality dimensions - agreeableness, extroversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness and openness to new experiences - can capture all human variations in behaviour and attitude.
     From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2015.06.13)
     A reaction: Researchers are considering a sixth - called 'honesty-humility' - which is roughly how devious people are. The five mentioned here seem to be a well entrenched orthodoxy among professional psychologists. Is personality more superficial than character?
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 3. Ontology of Concepts / a. Concepts as representations
Our notions may be formed from concepts, but concepts are formed from things [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: You assert that the notion of substance is formed from concepts, and not from things. But are not concepts themselves formed from things?
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1699.06.23), quoted by David Wiggins - Sameness and Substance Renewed 5.7
     A reaction: A nice remark, which is true even of highly abstruse, abstract or fanciful concepts. You are still left with the question of how far away from reality you have moved when you construct things from your reality-based concepts.
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 3. Abstracta by Ignoring
Universals are just abstractions by concealing some of the circumstances [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: In forming universals the soul only abstracts certain circumstances by concealing innumerable others. ..A spherical body complete in all respects is nowhere in nature; the soul forms such a notion by concealing aberrations.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704 or 1705)
     A reaction: This is Leibniz's affirmation of traditional 'abstraction by ignoring', which everyone seems to have believed in before Frege, and which I personally think is simply correct, even though it is deeply unfashionable and I keep it to myself.
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality
Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.]
     Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice.
     From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where?
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 7. Later Matter Theories / c. Matter as extension
Even if extension is impenetrable, this still offers no explanation for motion and its laws [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Even if we grant impenetrability is added to extension, nothing complete is brought about, nothing from which a reason for motion, and especially the laws of motion, can be given.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704 or 1705)
     A reaction: When it comes to the reasons for the so-called 'laws of nature', scientists give up, because they've only got mathematical descriptions, whereas the philosopher won't give up (even though, embarassingly, the evidence is running a bit thin).
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 1. Laws of Nature
An entelechy is a law of the series of its event within some entity [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: I recognize a primitive entelechy in the active force found in motion, something analogous to the soul, whose nature consists in a certain law of the same series of changes.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1699.03.24)
     A reaction: This is his 'law-of-the-series', which is a speculative attempt to pin down the character of the active essence of things which gives rise to activity. The law of such activity is within the things themselves, as scientific essentialists claim.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / c. Essence and laws
The only permanence in things, constituting their substance, is a law of continuity [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Nothing is permanent in things except the law itself, which involves a continuous succession ...The fact that a certain law persists ...is the very fact that constitutes the same substance.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704)
     A reaction: Aristotle and Leibniz are the very clear ancestors of modern scientific essentialism. I've left out a few inconvenient bits, about containing 'the whole universe', and containing all 'future states'. For Leibniz, laws are entirely rooted in things.
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / c. Forces
The force behind motion is like a soul, with its own laws of continual change [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: I recognise, in the active force which exerts itself through motion, the primitive entelechy or in a word, something analogous to the soul, whose nature consists in a certain perpetual law of the same series of changes through which it runs unhindered.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1699), quoted by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 6.1.3
     A reaction: This is a hugely metaphysical account of force, contrasting with Newton's largely mathematical account. He very often says that force is 'analogous' to the soul, rather than that it actually is a soul. He never quite believes that monads are real minds.
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 2. Thermodynamics / d. Entropy
Entropy is the only time-asymmetric law, so time may be linked to entropy [New Sci.]
     Full Idea: All our physical laws are time-symmetric, ...so things can run forwards or backwards. But entropy is an exception, saying that disorder increases over time. Many physicists therefore suspect that the flow of time is linked to entropy.
     From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2017.02.04)
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 2. Electrodynamics / a. Electrodynamics
Light moves at a constant space-time speed, but its direction is in neither space nor time [New Sci.]
     Full Idea: A light ray always moves at one unit of space per unit of time - a constant diagonal on the graph. ...But the direction that light rays travel in is neither space nor time, and is called 'null'. It is on the edge between space and time.
     From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2013.06.15)
     A reaction: Don't understand this, but it sounds fun.
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 2. Electrodynamics / d. Quantum mechanics
Quantum states are measured by external time, of unknown origin [New Sci.]
     Full Idea: When we measure the evolution of a quantum state, it is to the beat of an external timepiece of unknown provenance.
     From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2013.06.15)
     A reaction: It is best not to leap to philosophical conclusions when studying modern physics. Evidently time has a very different status in quantum mechanics and in relativity theory.
The Schrödinger equation describes the evolution of an object's wave function in Hilbert space [New Sci.]
     Full Idea: A quantum object's state is described by a wave function living in Hilbert space, encompassing all of its possible states. We see how the wave function evolves in time, moving from one state to another, using the Schrödinger equation.
     From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2013.06.15)
     A reaction: [These idea are basic explanations for non-scientific philosophers - please forgive anything that makes you wince]
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 5. Unified Models / b. String theory
In string theory space-time has a grainy indivisible substructure [New Sci.]
     Full Idea: String theory suggests that space-time has a grainy substructure - you can't keep chopping it indefinitely into smaller and smaller pieces.
     From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2015.11.07)
     A reaction: Presumably the proposal is that strings are the true 'atoms'.
It is impossible for find a model of actuality among the innumerable models in string theory [New Sci.]
     Full Idea: String theory has more than 10-to-the-500th solutions, each describing a different sort of universe, so it is nigh-on impossible to find the one solution that corresponds to our geometrically flat, expanding space-time full of particles.
     From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2015.11.07)
String theory needs at least 10 space-time dimensions [New Sci.]
     Full Idea: String theory needs at least 10 space-time dimensions to be mathematically consistent.
     From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2013.06.15)
     A reaction: Apparently because of 'Ads/CFT', it may be possible to swap this situation for a more tractable 4-dimensional version.
27. Natural Reality / C. Space / 2. Space
Hilbert Space is an abstraction representing all possible states of a quantum system [New Sci.]
     Full Idea: The elements of the abstract mathematical entity called Hilbert Space represent all the possible states of a quantum system
     From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 1017.02.04)
Space is the order of coexisting possibles [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Extension is the order of coexisting possibles.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1703.06.20)
     A reaction: [In his next letter he uses the word 'space' instead of 'extension'] This is a rather startling different and modal definition of space. Cf Idea 13181.
27. Natural Reality / C. Space / 6. Space-Time
Relativity makes time and space jointly basic; quantum theory splits them, and prioritises time [New Sci.]
     Full Idea: Relativity says space and time are on the same footing - together they are the fabric of reality. Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, treats time and space differently, with time occasionally seeming more fundamental.
     From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2013.06.15)
     A reaction: Interesting. When talking about time, people glibly cite relativistic space-time to tell you that time is just another dimension. Now I can reply 'Aaah, but what about time in quantum mechanics? Eh? Eh?'. Excellent.
Einstein's merging of time with space has left us confused about the nature of time [New Sci.]
     Full Idea: Our hunt for the most basic ingredients of reality has left us muddled about the status of time. One culprit for this was Einstein, whose theory of general relativity merged time with space.
     From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2017.02.04)
Space-time may be a geometrical manifestation of quantum entanglement [New Sci.]
     Full Idea: A promising theory (based on the 'Maldacena duality' - that string equations for gravity are the same as quantum equations for surface area) is that space-time is really just geometrical manifestations of quantum entanglement.
     From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2015.11.07)
     A reaction: This is a speculation which might unite the incompatible quantum and general relativity theories.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / b. Relative time
Time is the order of inconsistent possibilities [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Time is the order of inconsistent possibilities.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1703.06.20)
     A reaction: Cf. Idea 13180. This sounds wonderfully bold and interesting, but I can't make much sense of it. One might say it is 'an' order for such things, but 'the' order is weird.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / d. Time as measure
Quantum theory relies on a clock outside the system - but where is it located? [New Sci.]
     Full Idea: After general relativity, quantum mechanics reinstated our familiar notion of time. The buzzing of the quantum world plays out according to the authoritative tick of a clock outside the described system, ...but where is this clock doing its ticking?
     From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2017.02.04)
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / g. Time's arrow
Entropy is puzzling, so we may need to build new laws which include time directionality [New Sci.]
     Full Idea: Smolin observes that if entropy increases, the early universe must have been highly ordered, which we cannot explain. Maybe we need to build time directionality into the laws, instead of making time depend on entropy.
     From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2017.02.04)
     A reaction: [compressed]
27. Natural Reality / E. Cosmology / 7. Black Holes
General relativity predicts black holes, as former massive stars, and as galaxy centres [New Sci.]
     Full Idea: Black holes are predicted by general relativity, and are thought to exist where massive stars once lived, as well as at the heart of every galaxy.
     From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2013.06.15)
     A reaction: Since black holes now seem to be a certainty, that is one hell of an impressive prediction.
Black holes have entropy, but general relativity says they are unstructured, and lack entropy [New Sci.]
     Full Idea: Black holes have a temperature, and hence entropy. ...But if a black hole are just an extreme scrunching of smooth space-time, it should have no substructure, and thus no entropy. This is probably the most obvious incompleteness of general relativity.
     From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2015.11.07)
27. Natural Reality / E. Cosmology / 8. Dark Matter
84.5 percent of the universe is made of dark matter [New Sci.]
     Full Idea: Dark matter makes up 84.5 percent of the universe's matter.
     From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2013.10.29)
27. Natural Reality / F. Chemistry / 1. Chemistry
We are halfway to synthesising any molecule we want [New Sci.]
     Full Idea: Ei-ichi Negishi (Nobel chemist of 2010) says 'the ultimate goal is to be able to synthesise any molecule we want. We are probably about halfway there'.
     From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2010.10.16)
27. Natural Reality / F. Chemistry / 3. Periodic Table
Chemistry just needs the periodic table, and protons, electrons and neutrinos [New Sci.]
     Full Idea: Ei-ichi Negishi (Nobel chemist of 2010) says 'I work with the periodic table in front of me at all times, and approach all challenges in terms of three particles, positively charged protons, negatively charged electrons, and neutral neutrinos'.
     From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2010.10.16)