esiegel | July 23, 2010"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light." -Plato
Imagine, if you will, the year 2200. Forget about the flying cars and robotic exoskeletons, though. I'm thinking about the incredible scientific tools we'll have at our disposal, as well as the huge set of information we'll have available about the Universe.
One day, the latest telescope project gets completed, and we're finally able to make detailed measurements of an extra-solar planet's surface!
We'd already been able to learn much about this planet, including…
esiegel | July 22, 2010"The light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long - and you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy. Look at you: you're the Prodigal Son; you're quite a prize!" -Tyrell, from Blade Runner
Look up at the night sky. On a clear, dark night with normal vision, you can literally see thousands of stars.
Some of them are barely visible, others shine so brightly that they come out when the sky's still blue! Why do some appear brighter than others? Two reasons. Some stars are simply closer to us, but others, intrinsically, shine spectacularly bright. Let's take a look at a small section…
esiegel | July 21, 2010He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot. -Douglas Adams
When I started writing about science online in January of 2008, I put the word out that I would accept questions from my readers. After all, I knew that there was a lot of misinformation out there, as well as the more insidious "technically correct but misleading" information about science.
In particular, I want to get the actual information that we know out there. As far as what I can contribute, I'm confident that I can add an expert voice for my specialties (physics, astronomy…
esiegel | July 18, 2010"Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all." -Abraham Lincoln
Last weekend, I presented you with two remarkable covers, one from music and one from astronomy. This week, I'm going to show you the reverse of that; going back to the forgotten originals. Many of you will remember the early 1990s, where some fantastic music performances happened on MTV's
Unplugged, including a remarkable performance by Nirvana. They closed the show with this song,
Nirvana - Where Did You Sleep Last Night,which is a cover of an old song by Huddie William Ledbetter,…
esiegel | July 16, 2010"If you only look at a person through one lens, or only believe what you're told, you can often miss the truth that is staring you in the face." -Kevin Spacey
One of the most powerful ideas from Einstein's theory of Gravity -- General Relativity -- is that any massive object in the Universe not only causes a gravitational force on other masses, but also bends light!
Image credit: Dave Jarvis of http://davidjarvis.ca/dave/gallery/.
(Link to David Jarvis' gallery.) This was confirmed in 1919 by observing the positions of stars during a total solar eclipse; the stars closest to the Sun had…
esiegel | July 14, 2010"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." -Galileo Galilei
Geez, Ethan, why don't you take on a bigger question?
This question of "fundamental things" has a special meaning to scientists and natural philosophers, going all the way back to Thales of Miletus, 2600 years ago, who began asking about the arche (αρχή), which is the "element" or "prime cause" of existing things.
Of course, the scientific enterprise was just beginning, so you can't fault Thales too much for coming up with "water". But…
esiegel | July 12, 2010Yo ho! It's hot, the sun is not a place where we could live.
But here on earth there'd be no life without the light it gives.
We need its light. We need its heat. We need its energy.
Without the sun without a doubt there'd be no you and me. -They Might Be Giants
Ahh, the Sun. Beautiful and blinding to the naked eye, it's still the source of energy that gave rise to all of the life on Earth that we know.
Image credit: GOES satellite, in the X-ray.
The Sun emits energy all over the light spectrum, from long-wavelength radio waves (many meters long) to visible light to X-rays (just a small…
esiegel | July 10, 2010"We want our sound to go into the soul of the audience, and see if it can awaken some little thing in their minds... 'Cause there are so many sleeping people."
-Jimi Hendrix
One of the greatest challenges in music is to take a great original song and cover it, adding your own twist or flavor, and produce something that's even better. Most of you have heard the Four Tops' song It's the Same Old Song, which has its own interesting story.
It's The Same Old SongBut this past week, I discovered a cover of it by Iron & Wine, which kind of, well, awakened something inside of me listening to it.…
esiegel | July 9, 2010"I admitted, that the world had existed millions of years. I am astonished at the ignorance of the masses on these subjects. Hugh Miller has it right when he says that 'the battle of evidences must now be fought on the field of the natural sciences.'"
-James A. Garfield, future U.S. President, in 1859
You will find all sorts of ideas out there on how old the Earth, the Galaxy, and the Universe are. Some contend that it's only a few thousand years old, while others contend that it's infinitely old.
You and I are free to believe whatever we want, of course. But before you decide what you…
esiegel | July 7, 2010"Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful." -Mark Victor Hansen
Last week, the Obama Administration unveiled their new National Space Policy for the United States of America. This is the first national space policy since Bush's policy from 2006.
Do you remember what the main stated goal of the Bush administration was? To "…
esiegel | July 6, 2010"To exist in this vast universe for a speck of time is the great gift of life. Our tiny sliver of time is our gift of life. It is our only life. The universe will go on, indifferent to our brief existence, but while we are here we touch not just part of that vastness, but also the lives around us." -Terry Goodkind
Our view of the Universe changed forever in the 1960s with the discovery of the cosmic microwave background, known today to be the leftover glow from the Big Bang. This microwave-wavelength radiation, coming uniformly from all directions in the sky, was discovered with this…
esiegel | July 2, 2010"Any red-blooded, flag-fearing American would love the M-320. Celebrate the independence of your nation by blowing up a small part of it." -The Simpsons
There are many things that your life has to offer as far as fun goes, and it's different for each person. For me, music is a huge part of it. Here's a double feature by Michael Chapman:
Dewsbury Road / That Time of Night.So as my nation celebrates its independence and I chill out at a music festival, I hope you find something great to enjoy! And if you want a little astronomical eye candy in the meantime, here's looking into the heart of a…
esiegel | July 1, 2010"Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." -Neils Bohr
As many of you know, the Big Bang is one of the most powerful scientific theories we have.
It's also one of the most unsettling. The idea that our entire Universe -- filled with practically a trillion galaxies -- is only three times as old as our Sun and was once compressed into the size of your thumb is pretty unsettling.
As an astute commenter noted earlier this week,
I'm asking what persuasive predictions BB has to its credit. Most usually the best I see is new observations favoring one BB variant over…
esiegel | June 30, 2010"I have given them the last rites, now you do what you will. You are stronger than us, but soon I think they be stronger than you." -Dawn of the Dead
Here at Starts With a Bang, one of the things I'm passionate about is putting forth all sorts of different pieces of evidence for dark matter, and trying to help you piece together a coherent picture of how the Universe works.
But every once in a while, something comes along to derail me. I'm not going to let that happen today, though. From showing you how two colliding galaxy clusters interact, separating the majority of protons, neutrons, and…
esiegel | June 28, 2010The task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what no body yet has thought about that which everyone sees. -Arthur Schopenhauer
Most of you who've been reading Starts With A Bang for a while have seen this picture come up many, many times.
Why do I keep putting it up, and why is it so important?
Let's go back to the 1960s for a little bit. Back then, there were two major rival theories about the origin of the Universe: the Big Bang theory and the Steady-State model of the Universe. The Big Bang contended that the Universe was hotter and denser in the past, and thus of…
esiegel | June 27, 2010"Voyagers discover that the world can never be larger than the person that is in the world; but it is impossible to foresee this, it is impossible to be warned."
-James A. Baldwin
Sometimes, good things happen. And sometimes, you need to get out there, however down you're feeling, and make them happen. For me, a little bit of pump-up music always helps with that. While I'll usually pick something like Guns n' Roses, I like introducing you to music you may not know (or may have missed), so here's Long Way Down by the Goo Goo Dolls, a minor hit from when I was a teenager.
Long Way DownTwo…
esiegel | June 24, 2010"The Universe is made mostly of dark matter and dark energy, and we don't know what either of them is." -Saul Perlmutter
When I was starting out as a graduate student, one of the most exciting (and daunting) tasks facing me was to piece together a scientifically accurate and useful picture of the Universe, including its composition, structure, and history. (And I owe a huge shout-out to my PhD advisor, who helped me immeasurably in that task.)
The big question facing me, as far as I was concerned, was deciding whose ideas were right, and which were the ones I should spend my time and energy…
esiegel | June 21, 2010A person without a shadow should keep out of the sun, that is the only safe and rational plan. -Adelbert von Chamisso
A few years ago, there was a rumor going around that the Earth's axis had shifted, and that we were no longer inclined to the Sun at 23.5°.
Well, guess what? Today, June 21st, like most June 21sts, is the Summer Solstice for the Northern Hemisphere. This means, for everyone (like me) living North of the Tropic of Cancer, this is the one day of the year where the Sun reaches its absolute highest point in the sky.
(If you're South of the Tropic of Capricorn, this will apply to…
esiegel | June 20, 2010Four years of football are calculated to breed in the average man more of the ingredients of success in life than almost any academic course he takes.
-Knute Rockne
Of course, academics are (mostly) on summer vacation right now, so the worst you're likely to run into is getting stuck behind a school bus on the roads. Which isn't so bad, even, if you listen to Storyhill's take on it.
Schoolbus by StoryhillBut having completed a PhD program, and having known a few hundred other grad students during the last decade or so, I can proudly recognize some of the ingredients of success that may be…
esiegel | June 18, 2010"No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit." -Helen Keller
If you've been paying attention, you heard that the Kepler mission, earlier this week, announced the discovery of 706 candidate planets orbiting stars in its field of view.
And while most of the planets it found were Neptune-sized or smaller, they were still mostly gas giants, and still mostly closer than Mercury to their parent stars. Kepler's looking at 100,000 stars, and while finding 706 planets is certainly not bad for just over a month's…