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esiegel | April 24, 2008So as a full member of both the American Astronomical Society and the American Physical Society, I get sent issues of the magazine Physics Today. Well, I was going through the April issue, when I saw this article:
Cosmic Sound Waves Rule
by Daniel J. Eisenstein and Charles L. Bennett
That first name sounds familiar. Why? Because he's my boss! The article requires a subscription, but seeing as how this is what my research is, why don't I tell you what the big idea is.
The Universe is full of dark matter, normal matter, and radiation. When it's young, the radiation is more important than matter…
esiegel | April 9, 2008You've all heard these words before. Dark Energy. But what is it, and why are we stuck with it? Let me start by telling you a story.
Imagine, for a minute, that you have a candle. You know everything about this candle, including how bright it is and how far away it is from you. Like so:
Now if I move this candle twice as far away, I know it's going to be one-fourth as luminous. If I move it three times as far away, I know it's going to appear one-ninth as luminous. And if I move it a thousand times farther away, I know what I see is going to be one-millionth as luminous as the original…