Listen, it\u2019s not that I actually want to kill the sun \u2013 I just want to figure out how<\/em>. But when I told my colleagues at New Scientist<\/em> that I was recruiting scientists to do just this, I was met with baffled looks. I write about space every single day, an\u00add I find it endlessly fascinating. I feel at home with the mysteries of the cosmos, so why would I want to ruin any part of it, let alone kill our beloved and essential star?<\/p>\n Despite their confusion, my colleagues indulged me and my partner in destruction, our US editor Chelsea Whyte. We started reaching out to free-thinking astrophysicists and planetary scientists, asking them to join us on our podcast, Dead Planets Society. With them we began tinkering with the universe \u2013 in our minds, at least \u2013 not only killing the sun but imagining a gravitational wave apocalypse, what would happen if sliced the moon in half or chiseled the Earth into a cube.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As we thought about questions to ask the guests we had on the show, who are all university professors and proper scientists, we found ourselves looking up tidbits about gravity and planetary science, doing calculations of escape velocities and Roche limits. As much as the podcast was a flight of fancy \u2013 a fun game to play \u2013 it also started to feel a bit like we were doing science. We realised that seemingly absurd thought experiments have always been at heart of the scientific method.<\/p>\n Science began with thought experiments rather than empirical experiments that are carried out with lab benches or telescopes, says philosopher H. Peter Steeves at DePaul University. Galileo Galilei, one of the founders of the modern scientific method in the 16th century, is remembered for dropping a feather and a hammer from the Leaning Tower of Pisa. By demonstrating they fell at the same rate, the story goes, Galileo overturned a 2000-year-old idea of how gravity worked. \u201c[It] is as fanciful a story as Newton getting hit on the head with an apple,\u201d says Steeves. \u201cBut there is evidence that he engaged in a thought experiment to demonstrate how Aristotle\u2019s conception of gravity was incorrect.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the course of history, we have become far better at performing practical experiments, but thought experiments remain important. For example, Albert Einstein, who also transformed our view of the universe by grappling with gravity, is renowned for conjuring absurd scenarios in his head. One evening as he was riding in a streetcar, he imagined what the world would look like if he were travelling at the speed of light. After years of frustration trying to explain the behaviour of light, this was the seed that grew into special relativity in 1905. \u201cImagining things on this grand scale presents the familiar in a different way,\u201d says philosopher Guy Kahane at the University of Oxford.<\/p>\n At Dead Planets Society, we like to imagine what would happen if Earth were cube-shaped<\/p>\n Vitaga\/Adobe Stock<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n This is no less true today. Indulging in thought experiments is common practice among theorists trying to understand black holes and what these extreme objects reveal about the nature of reality. For instance, the intense gravity of a black holes mean that you can\u2019t place any scientific instruments right next to one or inside one in order transmit data back out. So theorists spend a whole lot of time thinking about and calculating what might happen to an observer in one of those positions \u2013 leading to all kinds of surprising insights about concepts like time and causality. \u201cOnce you\u2019re thinking in this playful way, you start to see things that you wouldn\u2019t see otherwise,\u201d says Kahane.<\/p>\n In the first episode of season two of Dead Planets Society, we carry out our own black hole thought experiment. Black holes are often thought of as massive voids that swallow everything that comes near them \u2013 they are the ultimate destroyers. So what would we learn by trying to demolish one? Searching for the black hole\u2019s weak spot, we considered using infinitely fast spacecraft to escape a black hole with some of its mass, or unrealistically powerful magnets to rip it apart. We can\u2019t actually build these cosmic tools, but imagining them reframed how we thought about black holes.<\/p>\n Over the course of recording the episode, this led us to think of black holes in new ways. Using quantum mechanics, we can picture them as incredibly massive objects that happen to have escape velocities higher than the speed of light, or according to general relativity, they are infinitely deep divots in space-time itself. The latter, for the record, is much harder to destroy.<\/p>\n Freedom from seriousness is an opportunity that Chelsea and I run wild with in the podcast. Cosmologists can benefit from thinking like this too, says Wendy Freedman at the University of Chicago. As we observe more and more astronomical anomalies, jarring with the standard model of cosmology, it is becoming evident that our best empirical theory of the universe is due an overhaul. \u201cAs the data get better and better and the theories get more and more creative, something will fit,\u201d says Freedman. \u201cWe need wacky ideas right now, because there are so many things that we don\u2019t understand.\u201d<\/p>\n Nobel prizewinning cosmologist Jim Peebles, one of the architects of the standard model, agrees that this sort of playful thinking \u201cis an important part of science\u201d, so long as you get the balance right. \u201cI indulge in blue-sky thinking; it\u2019s\u2026 a time sink if overdone and a loss if suppressed,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Mike Myers as Dr Evil<\/p>\n FlixPix \/ Alamy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n Now, I am not claiming that Chelsea and I are going to solve the problems with the standard model of cosmology by considering how to give the Milky Way more arms. But I do think that something is lost when scientists take themselves too seriously. Sure, the conversations we had while making Dead Planets Society are a little goofy, but they are also some of the most thought-provoking exchanges I have ever had.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you cut the moon in half, blew up the sun or suddenly turned the Earth into a cube, well, this is all interesting \u2013 and not just to Dr Evil, a Bond villain or the Borg,\u201d says Steeves. \u201cIt pushes us both to think about limit cases given our current understanding of science and to have fun while doing it. Both of these are important: the pushing and the fun.\u201d<\/p>\n If we weren\u2019t having fun, we never would have realised that if the sun were to disappear, whales would outlive humans. It turns out this is true for most other types of apocalypses too, so underwater life may have a better chance out there in the universe than land-based organisms.\u00a0 We certainly would never have thought of using aerogel as a sort of cosmic fly strip to catch asteroids.<\/p>\n Steeves quotes Rob Reiner\u2019s cult movie This Is Spinal Tap,<\/em> which he describes as a font of scientific truths: \u201cIt\u2019s such a fine line between stupid and clever.\u201d In other words, turning our silliness up to 11 doesn\u2019t mean we won\u2019t end up with clever or interesting ideas.<\/p>\n This Is Spinal Tap holds surprising scientific truths<\/p>\n Pictorial Press Ltd \/ Alamy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n The universe is big and messy and sometimes it feels like anything that can happen, cosmically, probably is happening somewhere out there. That is the beauty of it. So idle speculation, no matter how outlandish, is not necessarily useless. It can help reveal the secrets of the universe \u2013 even if it does mean thinking like a cartoon villain and, sometimes, trying to kill the sun.<\/p>\n And as for my colleagues\u2019 bafflement, I will let Steeves respond to that: \u201cThe sanity question is hard. Are you a maniac, Leah? Perhaps. But in the very best way.\u201d I\u2019ll carry that compliment with me as I continue to imagine exploring and occasionally ruining the cosmos.<\/p>\n Dead Planets Society is a hilariously destructive podcast about the cosmos from New Scientist<\/em>. In each episode, hosts Leah Crane and Chelsea Whyte explore what would happen if they were given cosmic powers to rearrange the universe. They speak with astronomers, cosmologists and geologists to find out what the consequences would be if we punched a hole in a planet, unified the asteroid belt or destroyed the sun. Season two of Dead Planets Society is available to listen to here.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Topics:<\/p>\n![\"New](\"https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/29183206\/deadplanets.jpg?width=1200\")
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