structure formation

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the Universe." -Carl Sagan The Universe is a lot like an extremely intricate cake. We view it today as a snapshot in time, now that it's complete. Image credit: Blogger user Hilly of http://makesbakesfakes.blogspot.com/. We can view the whole thing from one point of view, determined by where we happened to be located. But we can also look intricately inside certain sections of it, so long as we have the right tools. Image credit: Blogger user Hilly of http://makesbakesfakes.blogspot.com/. But if we truly want to…

"You must learn to talk clearly. The jargon of scientific terminology which rolls off your tongues is mental garbage." -Martin H. Fischer I've always thought that the Universe is absolutely amazing; that everything from the tiniest indivisible particles all the way up to the largest structures and superstructures making up the Universe has an amazing story to tell, if only we can figure out its secrets. Image credit: Boylan-Kolchin et al. (2009) for the Millenium-II simulation; MPA Garching. When I first learned some of them for myself, I was a graduate student, immersed in the minutiae and…