esiegel

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Ethan Siegel

Ethan was born in New York City as the son of a Jewish postal worker. He did his undergrad at Northwestern, taught public school in Houston, Texas and Los Angeles, California, before moving to Florida, where he got his PhD in theoretical astrophysics at the University of Florida. After that, he moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where he taught at the University of Wisconsin, ate too much cheese, and also met his life partner, Jamie. After working in astrophysics research at the University of Arizona and starting the world-renowned science blog, Starts With A Bang, he moved from the hellish desert to rain-soaked Portland in 2008. Since then, he's been a professor at the University of Portland and Lewis & Clark College, grown a nationally renowned beard and mustache, got invited to join a circus and probably drank more beer than a healthy person should. He currently works as the head curator at Trapit, and can't wait to tell you a little bit more about the Universe.

Posts by this author

All about Cosmic Inflation (Synopsis)
“I don’t think at this point we have any way of knowing where the laws of physics came from. We could hope that when we really understand the laws of physics that they will describe how the Universe came into existence.” -Alan Guth So, since Monday's big story -- about the BICEP2…
Messier Monday: The Wrong-Way Globular Cluster, M68 (Synopsis)
“A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?” -Khalil Gibran When you think about globular clusters, you normally think…
Evidence of the Universe from Before the Big Bang? (Synopsis)
“Despite its name, the big bang theory is not really a theory of a bang at all. It is really only a theory of the aftermath of a bang.” -Alan Guth So, you've heard the big news by now, no doubt? Primordial B-modes have been detected in the polarization of the cosmic microwave background! Images…
Weekend Diversion: Anti-Piracy Entertainment (Synopsis)
“[M]y goal is to always come from a place of love… but sometimes you just have to break it down for a motherfucker.” -RuPaul We've all had to face the dilemma, when we can't easily afford something, whether to forego it, or whether to obtain it through means that don't compensate the original…
Comments of the Week #2: From the Sun's death to the light elements
"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use." -Soren Kierkegaard After all is said-and-done this week, and after all the new posts over at the main Starts With A Bang on Medium, you've had a chance to have your say here on our forum! And…
Ask Ethan #28: Feeding the Monster (Synopsis)
“What makes us love… is when we learn all these fantastic stories. Feeding the imagination is what makes a subject come alive.” -Daniel Tammet Is the largest object in our galaxy — our central black hole — poised to devour a massive gas cloud? Image credit: ESO/MPE/M. Schartmann/L. Calçada. As…
Throwback Thursday: Fun Facts for Pi Day (Synopsis)
“So here we have π squared, which an engineer would call ‘10.’” -Frank King This March 14th, stump your friends with these amazing facts about the world’s favorite transcendental number! Image credit: Wikimedia Commons users TechnoGuyRob and InverseHypercube. I've written about Pi Day twice…
The 3 most surprising elements (Synopsis)
“We cannot conceive of matter being formed of nothing, since things require a seed to start from… Therefore there is not anything which returns to nothing, but all things return dissolved into their elements.” -William Shakespeare Every element found on Earth was made in either the Big Bang or the…
Why the world needs Cosmos (Synopsis)
“The brain is like a muscle. When it is in use we feel very good. Understanding is joyous.” -Carl Sagan I haven't been shy about sharing my hopes for the new Cosmos series, which aired its first episode earlier this week. Image credit: Fox Studios / Cosmos. Personally, I thought it was good…
Messier Monday: A Spiral Sliver Headed Our Way, M98 (Synopsis)
“[L]ife is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.” -Virginia Woolf One of the only members of the Virgo Cluster… that isn’t located in Virgo! When it comes to wonders of the night sky, you might think that if you've seen one…
Weekend Diversion: The Greatest Cabaret in the World (Synopsis)
“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 (…
Comments of the Week #1: from Color to "Settled Science"
"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…
Ask Ethan #27: Will the Earth and Moon survive? (Synopsis)
“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…
Can science ever be “settled”? (Synopsis)
“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…
Throwback Thursday: Incredible Star Trails (Synopsis)
“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,…
Messier Monday: Virgo’s brightest galaxy, M49 (Synopsis)
“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…
Weekend Diversion: Ten things a Dad told his children (Synopsis)
“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…
Ask Ethan #26: Burn, baby, burn!
"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;…
What is Color? (Synopsis)
“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…
Throwback Thursday: The Physics of Volcanic Lightning
“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…
Top 5 facts about Imaginary Math (Synopsis)
“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 …
Messier Monday: The Black Eye Galaxy, M64 (Synopsis)
“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…
Weekend Diversion: Building Down (Synopsis)
“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!…
Ask Ethan #25: Where would you go, now?
"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…
Is energy conserved in a Universe with dark energy? (Synopsis)
“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…
Throwback Thursday: Where is Everybody? (Synopsis)
“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…
Did it all start with a bang? (Synopsis)
“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,…
Ask Ethan #24: Cheating Time and Space
"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…
Ask Ethan #23: The Missing Andromeda Galaxy?
"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…
Weekend Diversion: How did the bicycle cross the highway? (synopsis)
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…