The Hubble Ultra-Deep Field image shows some of the most remote galaxies visible with present technology, each consisting of billions of stars (the image’s area of sky is very small – equivalent in size to one-tenth of a full moon)^[1]

Nick Hughes is a postdoctoral research fellow at University College Dublin. His recent piece in Aeon Magazine, “Do we matter in the cosmos?” begins by placing humanity  in our true temporal and spatial perspective: Continue reading Nick Hughes: “Do We Matter in the Cosmos?” →

A giant Hubble mosaic of the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant

1. Facts and Meaning

All the truths of modern science are relevant to considerations of meaning. But why? What it is about scientific facts that make them especially germane? Continue reading Astronomy, Evolution, and the Meaning of Life →

In this diagram, time passes from left to right, so at any given time, the Universe is represented by a disk-shaped “slice” of the diagram.

Notice that the possible stories of the origin, evolution and end of our universe Continue reading Universal Death and Meaninglessness →

In this diagram, time passes from left to right, so at any given time, the Universe is represented by a disk-shaped “slice” of the diagram.

Our universe began about 13.81 billion years ago. That we know this is a testimony to the power of science. It is truly an astonishing discovery and we are the first living people who have ever known this. Cosmology is speculative as to what happened before then, but competing ideas include that: Continue reading The Origin, Evolution, and Fate of the Cosmos →