In his short book Eureka Manifesto: The Mission for Our Civilisation, Yuri Milner discusses humanity’s mission to explore space, the reaches of time, and the heart of light and matter. He underscores the importance of research into fundamental science and space exploration to help us understand our Universe.
Here’s a closer look at the Eureka Manifesto mission and how Milner’s science philanthropy is helping scientists explore new frontiers.
Investing In Fundamental Science
Published in 2021, Eureka Manifesto explores Milner’s perspective on humanity’s place in the Universe. Life in the cosmos may be common or extremely rare; scientists haven’t quite decided. Nevertheless, the astonishing fact of our existence as sentient, living beings suggests an innate mission: to explore and understand our Universe.
Milner believes this mission could unite humanity, giving a greater purpose to our collective existence. Pursuing the mission could lead to unprecedented technological progress and the emergence of a grand, space-faring civilisation. Star Trek popularised the idea of space as the final frontier; the great unknown, ripe for colonisation.
To one day turn science fiction into reality, Milner says we must invest in fundamental science and space exploration now. Investing resources into these areas is one of five steps in his Eureka Manifesto plan of action.
After a sluggish period of growth during the 1990s and 2000s, the space industry is starting to take off again. Private investment and public funding public funding, causing commentators to cite the dawn of a “New Space Age”.
However, investment remains inadequate for areas of fundamental science with no immediate medical and technological advantages. Given the field’s significance for our future, this could be slowing our collective progress.
“For every Large Hadron Collider built, countless promising ideas never make it past the proposal stage,” Milner writes. He adds that fundamental science is “ .” As such, we must make fundamental science funding commensurate with the significance the field could hold for our futures.
Milner also advocates for enabling artificial intelligence (AI) to drive scientific progress. Channelling more AI research towards fundamental science could provide answers to some of our biggest questions about the Universe.
Yuri Milner’s Breakthrough Projects
Milner has founded several large-scale projects that investigate and support fundamental science and space exploration. These projects include the Breakthrough Prize and the Breakthrough Initiatives.
Rewarding Researchers in Fundamental Science and Maths
The Breakthrough Prize is the world’s biggest prize for fundamental science and mathematics. Each year, researchers breaking new ground in maths, fundamental physics, and the life sciences receive $3 million prizes for their cutting-edge work.
Aside from Milner and his wife Julia, the other Breakthrough Prize co-founders are Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan, Sergey Brin, and Anne Wojcicki.
The Breakthrough Prize announced its 2024 laureates in September 2023. They include John Cardy and Alexander Zamolodchikov, who won the Fundamental Physics prize for their lifelong dedication to advancing quantum field theories. These theories describe particle physics and emergent phenomena, such as the information content of black holes.
Pushing The Boundaries of Space Exploration
The Breakthrough Initiatives are a series of major space science programmes committed to uncovering the big mysteries of life in the Universe.
Milner and Stephen Hawking launched the first Breakthrough Initiative, Listen, at the Royal Society in London in 2015. Listen has reinvigorated the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). The programme partners with some of the world’s most advanced telescopes to survey celestial targets and listen for potentially alien radio signals.
Meanwhile, Breakthrough Watch addresses the question of whether there is primitive extraterrestrial life in the Universe. The programme uses Earth- and space-based equipment to identify planets beyond our Solar System that could host life.
In 2016, Hawking and Milner announced Breakthrough Starshot, a research and engineering project to develop tiny space probes that could travel at up to 20% of light speed. Starshot is an early-stage, long-term programme. However, if the project succeeds, humanity could significantly expand its cosmic horizons within a generation.
Yuri Milner’s Recent Insights: Space Missions and Death Bubbles
Milner frequently shares his thoughts and ideas on fundamental science discoveries and space exploration news on X (formerly Twitter). These are three of the stories he has recently shared.
Discovering The Source of Fast Radio Bursts
On 8 February 2024, Milner posted a news story about the characterisation of the repeating Fast Radio Burst (FRB) 20220912A. First discovered in autumn 2022 by the Allen Telescope Array (ATA), the source emitted 35 FRBs over two months. Located in California, the ATA is the first radio telescope purpose-built for SETI searches.
FRBs are short, bright pulses of radio emission from distant galaxies. Over the years, Breakthrough Listen has studied several FRB sources, including the mysterious FRB 121102. The bursts from FRB 121102 seem to come from a galaxy three billion light years from Earth. However, researchers still haven’t discovered the nature of the object emitting them.
Astronomers theorise that FRB 20220912A could be merging white dwarfs, colliding neutron star binaries, or a special type of neutron star called a magnetar.
Milner posted: “Characterising the source of fast radio bursts is one of the most intriguing problems in astrophysics.”
Greenlight For New Space Missions
On 13 February 2024, Milner posted a news story about the European Space Agency (ESA) approving two innovative missions. The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission seeks to detect ripples in space-time called gravitational waves. The EnVision mission will send an orbiter to explore the secrets of Venus, Earth’s closest planetary neighbour.
Milner posted: “It’s very good news that the @ESA has greenlit the LISA gravitational wave detector and the EnVision mission to Venus. As a planetary civilisation, it’s vital that we keep pushing the boundaries of fundamental science and space exploration.”
Albert Einstein predicted gravitational waves in 1916, although scientists only confirmed their existence in 2015. Set for 2035, the LISA mission will be the first to study gravitational waves from space.
Meanwhile, the EnVision mission will take off towards Venus in 2031. Scientists hope to better understand the planet’s atmosphere, surface, and inner core. New findings may help us uncover key events in Venus’ past, explaining why the planet developed sulphuric acid-rich clouds rather than being a habitable world like Earth.
Death Bubbles
On 17 February 2024, Milner posted a news story about scientists producing the first experimental evidence of vacuum decay. Research in this area of fundamental physics is advancing our understanding of the early Universe. Many believe vacuum decay played a central role in the creation of matter, space, and time in the Big Bang.
Milner tweeted: “Vacuum decay is real — the phenomenon has now been shown in experiments with supercooled gas. Is it time to take the cosmic version — “death bubbles” — seriously?”
Milner discusses the existential threat of death bubbles in Eureka Manifesto. These bubbles, which contain physical laws that differ from those of our Universe, could spontaneously form anywhere in space. If a bubble expands, it could obliterate all matter it encountered, including Earth.
Our current theory of particle physics tells us that, with enough time, a death bubble will inevitably form. Considering how long the Universe has survived without encountering such bubbles, the likelihood of one reaching us is probably quite low. However, when contemplating the distant future, even such remote risks become critical.
In Eureka Manifesto, Milner explains how scientists believe a sufficiently advanced civilisation could theoretically elude these life-threatening bubbles for a very long time.
Read more about the importance of research into fundamental science and space exploration in Eureka Manifesto.
About Yuri Milner
Billionaire tech investor Yuri Milner began his career as a theoretical physicist. Science is still his great passion, and in 2012 he and his wife signed the Giving Pledge , committing to fund scientific causes.
To support their science philanthropy, the Milners founded the Breakthrough Foundation. The Foundation supports projects like the Breakthrough Prize, Breakthrough Initiatives, and Breakthrough Junior Challenge. The annual, global competition asks teenagers to submit a short, creative video that sheds light on a complicated scientific idea.
The Breakthrough Foundation has also funded other science-focused projects, such as CERN Science Gateway. This outreach centre engages members of the public with the science and technology of CERN and the big questions of fundamental physics.
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