Investigation

How can the Servator hang there without pushing anything?

A sphere holds its position above the Nooitgedacht Protectorate. Nothing exhausts. Nothing spins. Everything we know about staying up involves pushing something down.

Physics · Measurement · Philosophy of science

The evidence

Suggested reading path

01Speculative FictionWhy the Servator's Hovering Sphere Is So Hard to ExplainA large mass holding a fixed altitude with no measurable exchange of momentum is not a hard engineering problem. It is a violation of the accounting.02Established KnowledgeWhy Light Speed Is More Than a Speed LimitLight does not merely travel very fast. Its speed helps define the relationship between space, time, information and cause and effect.03Established KnowledgeThe Map Is Not the TerritoryNewtonian mechanics, relativity, quantum mechanics and the Standard Model are not competing opinions about reality. They are maps that work at different scales.04Established KnowledgeWhere the Model BreaksAn irregular result is not new physics. It is a suspect — and it must survive interrogation before it becomes evidence.

Questions to think about

Keep arguing

— What would you have to measure to prove nothing is being pushed?
— If a model cannot explain an observation, is the observation wrong or the model incomplete?
— Ninety-three years of measurement have not settled it. What does that tell you about hard problems?

Continue

Other investigations

Biology · History · Ethics · Literature

Who has the right to rewrite a human being?

Biology · Cognition · Philosophy

What if an octopus is intelligent in a way we cannot measure?

Astronomy · Statistics · Astrobiology

If intelligent life is rare, how could anyone ever find us?

Astrobiology · Ecology · Literary criticism

What do they want — and why do we keep guessing?