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“I love that moment just before the curtain goes up…It’s a thrill that’s unequaled anywhere.” -Joel Grey
Seven of the greatest and most entertaining achievements of human ingenuity.
I don't know how many of you have ever come across the French television show Le Plus Grand Cabaret Du Monde (The Greatest Cabaret in the World), but it's devoted to providing a platform for some of the most amazing talent I've ever seen. I've only just discovered it, and I still have no idea -- as Beirut would sing -- what happens
After the Curtain.
But I did find seven amazing performances in…
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"I don't watch it, but I know enough to comment on it." -Dan Quayle
First off, I want to thank everyone involved here at Scienceblogs (especially Wes Dodson) for all the support over the years and especially over the past few months, even as the main Starts With A Bang blog has moved to Medium. I think it's important to keep this place open as a home for comments and discussions, and it's my great hope that excellent ones continue to ensue here.
Well, they have so far, particularly on three posts from the past week:
What is color?
Ask Ethan #26: Burn, Baby, Burn!
Can science ever be "settled…
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“They do not see what lies ahead, when Sun has faded and Moon is dead.” -J.R.R. Tolkien
Someday, the Sun will expand, engulfing Mercury and Venus, and then some. Will we survive?
It's an exciting week, as our long-running Ask Ethan series debuts over at Medium! You can still send in your questions and suggestions here, and tomorrow I'll respond here with the very first installment of comments of the week. But first, here's something you surely wonder about.
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons user Oona Räisänen (User:Mysid), User:Mrsanitazier.
Our Sun -- giver of life --…
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“All the problems of the world could be settled easily if men were only willing to think. The trouble is that men very often resort to all sorts of devices in order not to think, because thinking is such hard work.” -Thomas J. Watson
You’ll frequently hear people say, “the science is settled.” Scientifically speaking, can it ever be? (And yes, what follows below is meant to be an inflammatory image.)
Image credit: Ramirez of the Weekly Standard, via http://www.IBDeditorials.com/cartoons.
Let's take a look at five major instances -- gravitation, evolution, the Big Bang, germ…
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“Building one space station for everyone was and is insane: we should have built a dozen.” -Larry Niven
From Earth and beyond, these time lapses show our one-of-a-kind motion through the Universe.
Here on Earth, the night sky (and all the stars in it) appear to rotate a full 360° every 24 hours, producing star trails in long-exposure or time-lapse photography.
Image credit: Roger Groom at http://www.AstroPhotography.com.au/.
But what would you see if you went to space? Would there be star trails up there, and would a spacecraft like the Hubble Space Telescope see the same thing or…
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“We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.” -Carl Sagan
A galaxy very different from our own may hold the key to seeing what our far future looks like.
If you've ever had the opportunity to see the Virgo cluster of galaxies, you probably think of a wonderland of galaxies littering the sky. Something like this, perhaps.
Image credit: © 2014 Scott Rosen’s Astrophotography, via http://www.astronomersdoitinthedark.com/index.php?c=113&p=512.
But did…
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“Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.” -Aldous Huxley
Phrases that only came out of one man’s mouth because of his kids.
It's common knowledge that I myself don't have any children, but have spent the better portion of my adult life educating children of all ages, including elementary, middle and high school children, as well as college students and adults. Have a listen to the band Midlake’s interesting sounding song about children,
Children of the Grounds,
while I introduce you to the artwork of frustrated dad Nathan Ripperger.
Image…
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"Man loves company - even if it is only that of a small burning candle." -Georg C. Lichtenberg
It's the end of the week here at Starts With A Bang, and so it's time for still another Ask Ethan! This is -- for those of you wondering -- the final Ask Ethan we'll have here on Scienceblogs; starting next week we'll move the series over to Medium with the rest of the new Starts With A Bang content. But keep on sending in your questions and suggestions, and not only will we continue using this site as a forum for the new posts, but next week we'll begin a new series unique to…
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“You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you’re doing. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself.” -Alan Alda
Alan Alda recently challenged scientists to explain this simple question to 11-year-olds in less than 300 words. Could you do it?
It seems like a straightforward enough proposition; after all, we surely know it when we see it.
Image credit: Jessica at Ways of Wanderers, via http://waysofwanderers.com/colourful-flower-fields-biei/.
But there are some very tight constraints on this contest: you …
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“If you are caught on a golf course during a storm and are afraid of lightning, hold up a 1-iron. Not even God can hit a 1-iron.” -Lee Trevino
It’s one of the most beautiful (and terrifying) sights in the world. But what causes it?
If the Earth is about to spew volcanic ash, smoke, soot and even lava from deep within its bowels at us, the least it could do is not electrocute us at the same time. Right?
Image credit: Sigurður Hrafn Stefnisson of http://www.stefnisson.com/.
Yet over 150 separate volcanic eruptions have been recorded with volcanic lightning accompanying them. But there…
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“There is not enough love and goodness in the world to permit giving any of it away to imaginary beings.” -Friedrich Nietzsche
You know that the square root of -1 is “i”, an imaginary number. But did you know any of these?
For classical (Newtonian) mechanics, as well as electromagnetism, it's sufficient to use real mathematics to describe it fully, if not always ideal. But to take care of Einstein's relativity (and spacetime in particular), as well as quantum mechanics, you need to go beyond the real numbers and into the complex plane, which includes imaginary numbers as well!…
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“Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you’ll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below!” -Harry Truman, to a music critic who panned his daughter’s singing
When you think about the Messier objects in the night sky, you hope for skies like the ones coming up over the next few days. The Virgo cluster and a slew of deep-sky objects rise in the east in the early part of the night, a waning Moon that won't rise until after midnight holds the potential for excellent deep-sky seeing, and the 40 galaxies that make up the 110 objects of the Messier…
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“It is not the beauty of a building you should look at; it’s the construction of the foundation that will stand the test of time.” -David Allan Coe
As the population of cities continues to grow, real estate runs out fast. But one innovative solution may be the wave of the future: building down! Have a listen to Turin Brakes as they go through their remarkable song,
Building Wraps Round Me,
while we go through four remarkable, innovative solutions to real-estate shortages being implemented around the globe!
Image credit: Getty Images.
1.) Japan's automated underground bicycle parking…
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"They will see us waving from such great heights
'Come down now,' they'll say.
But everything looks perfect from far away
'Come down now.' But we'll stay." -The Postal Service
Welcome back to another Ask Ethan! You keep sending in your questions and suggestions, and each week, I'll pick one of my favorites to answer for you and the world. Today's Ask Ethan comes from John, who asks one of the more fanciful and personal questions I've fielded yet, as he wants to know:
If you could jump into the Enterprise, or the Millennium Falcon, or whatever is your favorite faster-than-light starship, what…
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“If you put yourself in a position where you have to stretch outside your comfort zone, then you are forced to expand your consciousness.” -Les Brown
On the one hand, you've got gravitation, the most powerful force in the Universe, trying to attract all the matter in it together. If it had its way, not only would everything eventually merge together, but the Universe itself would recollapse!
Image credit: Eugenio Bianchi, Carlo Rovelli & Rocky Kolb, modifications by me.
But on the other hand, the Universe is not only expanding, but that expansion is accelerating, thanks to…
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“If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens… Where Is Everybody?” -Stephen Webb
If stars, planets, and biological processes are so common in the Universe, then where is everyone?
Image credit: NASA / Space Shuttle Atlantis mission 110.
Here on Earth, we take for granted how easy it was for life to form. Our world has been around for some four-and-a-half billion years, and the oldest records of life go back to nearly the oldest rocks: 3.8 billion years ago.
But if we ran the "experiment" of having a Solar System similar to our own form in the Universe over and over again, how many…
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“Both the solutions must be rejected, and as these are the only statical solutions of the equations… the true solution represented in nature must be a dynamical solution.” -Willem de Sitter
First off, welcome, everyone! As you well know, the main Starts With A Bang blog has moved to Medium, something that's received mixed reviews from you, my longtime and most loyal of readers. Some people love the new layout, the larger images, and the ad-free experience, while others really miss the commenting features, the community we have here, and the ability to say whatever you like without a…
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"For the wise man looks into space and he knows there is no limited dimensions." -Lao Tzu
You know the deal: it's the end of the week, so it's time for another Ask Ethan! You've continued to send in your questions-and-suggestions, much to my delight, and I'm pleased to tell you that this week's question comes from Peter Tibbles. Peter asks about obtaining information from beyond where Einstein's theory of relativity allows us to see:
Because of the expansion of the universe there is an event horizon beyond which we can know nothing. There’s been one instance of intelligent life…
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"That which you create in beauty and goodness and truth lives on for all time to come." -Denis Waitley
It's been another spectacular week here in the Universe, and I'm pleased to take on another one of your wonderful questions in yet another Ask Ethan column! (Keep sending in your questions and suggestions if you have them.) This week's question comes from Robert Scott, and it's one of the simplest yet also the most puzzling:
I love looking at the beautiful long-exposure pictures of the Milky Way on the internet. I also love pictures of galaxies. One of my…
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The world’s first suspended traffic circle… for bicycles!
“I would like to propose slow cycling. Commute by bike. At a stroke, you remove the need for and absurd cost of public transport. Cycling is almost completely free. There is no longer any need for the gym as you get fit by cycling. And you can go at your own pace.” -Tom Hodgkinson
I’ve been living in Portland, OR for more than five years now, possibly the most cycling-friendly of all the major cities in the United States. But even Portland still has a ways to go before we solve all of our traffic-related problems, and make the…