Physical Science
The Ocean is the Dog. Atmospheric Temperature is the Tail.
Posted by Greg Laden on June 19, 2013 
Let me ‘splain. If you want to know exactly where your dog is, you could put at GPS sensor in the middle of it’s body, perhaps near the pancreas. It would give you an average position for your dog, and would be most accurate most of the time. If you put the GPS sensor on…
5 Facts You Probably Don’t Know About the Cosmic Microwave Background
Posted by Ethan on June 19, 2013 
“Science cannot tell theology how to construct a doctrine of creation, but you can’t construct a doctrine of creation without taking account of the age of the universe and the evolutionary character of cosmic history.” -John Polkinghorne Out there in space, whether we look with our eyes or with a telescope — a far more…
Quasi Poll: Most Needed Pop-Science Biography?
Posted by Chad Orzel on June 18, 2013 
I’ve got a ton of stuff that needs to get done this week, but I don’t want the blog to be completely devoid of new content, so here’s a quasi-poll question for my wise and worldly readers: What scientist is most in need of a good popular biography? By “popular biography,” I mean things like…
Messier Monday: Messier’s First Globular Cluster, M2
Posted by Ethan on June 17, 2013 
“God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind that I will never die.” -Bill Watterson Welcome back to another Messier Monday, only here on Starts With A Bang! With each new Monday, we take an in-depth look at a prominently visible random object from Messier’s catalogue…
Graduation 2013
Posted by Chad Orzel on June 17, 2013 
The other big event of the weekend was Commencement at Union. I didn’t make it in time for the academic procession and all that, but I did hear John Lewis’s speech, which was great. More importantly, though, I was there to see our students graduate, and congratulate them in person. As I told my thesis…
Hall of Fame
Posted by Chad Orzel on June 17, 2013 
This past weekend was more complicated than it might’ve been. On Friday night, we drove to Whitney Point to my parents’ house, then on Sunday morning very early we drove back to Niskayuna so I could make it to Union’s graduation on Sunday (I arrived just in time to hear Civil Rights icon John Lewis…
Of Controversies and Clocks
Posted by Chad Orzel on June 13, 2013 
A few months back, I got a call from a writer at a physics magazine, asking for comments on a controversy within AMO physics. I read a bunch of papers, and really didn’t quite understand the problem; not so much the issue at stake, but why it was so heated. When I spoke to the…
What is the Big Bang all about?
Posted by Ethan on June 13, 2013 
“Twinkle, twinkle, quasi-star Biggest puzzle from afar How unlike the other ones Brighter than a billion suns Twinkle, twinkle, quasi-star How I wonder what you are.” -George Gamow The Big Bang is one of the greatest, revolutionary ideas in all of modern science, but it’s also one of the most successful ideas as far as…
Few-Body Systems: Cooler Than You Might Think
Posted by Chad Orzel on June 12, 2013 
Hey, dude? Yeah, what’s up? I’m not normally the one who initiates this, but I was wondering: When you were at DAMOP last week, did you see any really neat physics? Oh, sure, tons of stuff. It was a little thinner than some past meetings– a lot of the Usual Suspects didn’t make the trip–…
Posted by 
Big science is a massively collaborative endeavor. From the initial theoretical puzzles to the brilliant engineers that build on-of-a-kind machinery, experts come together to make discoveries happen. Case in point: We’re moving this 50-foot-wide physics experiment over 3,200 miles of land, sea, and river, starting on Long Island, NY and ending in Batavia, IL. Sometimes understanding…
