Gravity
Category archives for Gravity
Messier Monday: The Gateway Galaxy to Virgo, M60
Posted by Ethan on February 4, 2013 
“The thing’s hollow—it goes on forever—and—oh my God—it’s full of stars!” -Dave Bowman, 2001: A Space Odyssey Back in October, we began a new, weekly series here called Messier Monday. Each Monday, we’ve taken a look at one of the 110 deep-sky objects that make up the Messier Catalogue, nebulous objects that might potentially be…
From Nothing to You in 10 Sentences
Posted by Ethan on February 1, 2013 
“It surprises me how disinterested we are today about things like physics, space, the universe and philosophy of our existence, our purpose, our final destination. It’s a crazy world out there. Be curious.” -Stephen Hawking One of the most existential questions humanity has ever asked is the question of our origins: where do I come from? Inspired by…
Why the Universe needs Dark Matter (and not MOND) in one graph
Posted by Ethan on January 18, 2013 
“The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us—there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, or falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.” -Carl…
The Last Refuge of a Science-Denying Scoundrel
Posted by Ethan on January 11, 2013 
“Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it.” – Samuel Johnson I have a six-sided die. I’m going to roll it ten times, and record each roll. And when I’m done, I’m going to have an incredibly rare, bet-you-can’t-reproduce-it result!…
A thought experiment for the relativity skeptics
Posted by Ethan on January 9, 2013 
“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” -Albert Einstein It may be hard to believe, seeing as how it’s been our leading theory of gravity for nearly a century now, but Einstein’s General Relativity is possibly the most frequently challenged scientific idea of all-time. Of course, it’s emerged victorious from each and…
Yes, we really, REALLY need Dark Matter!
Posted by Ethan on December 7, 2012 
“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. We can view the whole thing from one point of view, determined by where…
Why you must NEVER hug the Moon!
Posted by Ethan on November 28, 2012 
“Summer ends, and Autumn comes, and he who would have it otherwise would have high tide always and a full moon every night.” -Hal Borland Of course you know the danger that would befall us if the Earth ever got too close to the Sun, as the Perry Bible Fellowship shows, atop. But have you…
Giving thanks for our place in the Universe
Posted by Ethan on November 21, 2012 
“We live in an atmosphere of shame. We are ashamed of everything that is real about us; ashamed of ourselves, of our relatives, of our incomes, of our accents, of our opinions, of our experience, just as we are ashamed of our naked skins.” -George Bernard Shaw All that is real about ourselves is nothing…
So just what is out there beyond the Standard Model?
Posted by Ethan on November 16, 2012 
“Other than the laws of physics, rules have never really worked out for me.” -Craig Ferguson Earlier this week, evidence was presented measuring a very rare decay rate — albeit not incredibly precisely — which point towards the Standard Model being it as far as new particles accessible to colliders (such as the LHC) go.…
Every Galaxy will have New Stars for Trillions of Years!
Posted by Ethan on November 7, 2012 
“It’s a brilliant surface in that sunlight.” – Neil Armstrong Indeed, all that glitters so brilliantly in the cosmos does so because of the stars that have formed throughout it. Over the 14 billion-or-so years that our Universe has been around, we’ve formed hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy alone. Given that our…
