The best understanding of matter is in the form of quantum field theory (QFT). QFT is always formulated with some background metric (geometry) of spacetime as an input.
One idea is that the metric (geometry, gravity) could be a field just as matter is a field and people tried to apply the standard rules of (perturbative) QFT to gravity but failed. This is because the theory of gravity is unrenormalizable [0]. An interesting avenue in saving this line of thought is asymptotic safety where the idea is that gravity coupled to the standard model could actually be renormalizable in a certain sense [1].
In any case general relativity and quantum theory have so far been irreconcilable and there is now consensus on how to bridge the gap between those two theories. It is exactly because of this that most physicists will think of gravity and the other forces to be of a different nature.
When people say that gravity is not a force they mean that there is no known particle which acts as the intermediary of said force. For all the other forces we have a theory that explains the exertion of force via a particle.
Your first point states that "general relativity is just a model". Many physicists believe that it is more than a model but a true description of what the world really is like. I understand your urge to label theories as models, but ultimately the question is whether or not there is some level of ground truth that can be accessed in the form of mathematical theories.
> The excellent VimTeX plugin is the reason to use Vim over another LaTeX editor.
I agree that the plugin is best-in-class. Whenever I write LaTeX in Vim without the plugin installed I feel incredibly handicapped. (Also the documentation of the plugin is fantastic.)
Reminds me of the "lumiroses" from Margaret Atwood's dystopian MaddAddam trilogy. Although the roses are not integral to the books, the general theme of the series is taking bioengineering one step too far.
This is correct as long as you restrict your point of view only to sets. Even in pure mathematics one is usually interested in sets with additional structures. For instance, even though one speaks of the "set of real numbers" one usually implies that there is extra structure. In particular one usually requires that this set has operations "addition" and "multiplication" that make this set a ring. Then zero is the neutral element of addition and the annihilator of multiplication, so very special indeed!
I was always perplexed when I had to change the ordering of my accounts and still had to do it manually by editing the configuration after all these years. A big improvement for sure!
While I agree that the article should have mentioned black hole evaporation, I would like to point out that "dA/dt > 0" is commonly referred to as "Hawking's area theorem" as a quick online search can verify and Stephen Hawking certainly did publish on this topic.
> I too stumbled upon Classic Tetris through the Youtube algorithm.
To me this aspect was the most fascinating point about this article. I cannot shake the feeling that the algorithm "decided" for many individuals how to spend large amounts of their time.
As far as I know the "brain patterns" (as measured by EEG) during sleep are quite distinct. The article mentions somebody confirming that the subject was actually sleep.
I was quite surprised to hear Jim Keller talking about lucid dreaming on a recent episode of the Lex Fridman podcast. [0]
If I recall correctly, Keller uses dreaming as a productivity tool.
Loeb was recently a guest on the Lex Fridman podcast where he talked about Oumuamua amongst other things. [0] I found his view on the subject fascinating and his perspective on science refreshing.
This feels different from censorship on Twitter and Facebook to me. I guess the business model of Mailchimp is more transparent and I can appreciate that a company may choose who to do business with.
One idea is that the metric (geometry, gravity) could be a field just as matter is a field and people tried to apply the standard rules of (perturbative) QFT to gravity but failed. This is because the theory of gravity is unrenormalizable [0]. An interesting avenue in saving this line of thought is asymptotic safety where the idea is that gravity coupled to the standard model could actually be renormalizable in a certain sense [1].
In any case general relativity and quantum theory have so far been irreconcilable and there is now consensus on how to bridge the gap between those two theories. It is exactly because of this that most physicists will think of gravity and the other forces to be of a different nature.
When people say that gravity is not a force they mean that there is no known particle which acts as the intermediary of said force. For all the other forces we have a theory that explains the exertion of force via a particle.
Your first point states that "general relativity is just a model". Many physicists believe that it is more than a model but a true description of what the world really is like. I understand your urge to label theories as models, but ultimately the question is whether or not there is some level of ground truth that can be accessed in the form of mathematical theories.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renormalization#Renormalizabil... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymptotic_safety_in_quantum_g...