Physics
Category archives for Physics
Missions to Mars and Nuclear Fusion
Posted by Ethan on April 17, 2013 
“We are much closer today to being able to send humans to Mars than we were to being able to send men to the moon in 1961, and we were there eight years later. Given the will, we could have humans on Mars within a decade.” -Robert Zubrin Of all the planets in the Solar…
Messier Monday: The Whirlpool Galaxy, M51
Posted by Ethan on April 15, 2013 
“Upon one occasion, while engaged upon a seven-foot mirror, he did not remove his hands from it for 16 hours together.” -from Caroline Herschel’s obituary Welcome to another Messier Monday here on Starts With A Bang! Each Monday, we highlight a different one of the 110 deep-sky objects that Messier catalogued so that comet-hunters wouldn’t confuse these permanent…
Inflation, Dark Energy, and the Physics of Spacetime
Posted by Ethan on April 12, 2013 
“Orbiting Earth in spaceship, I saw how beautiful our planet is. People, let us preserve and increase beauty, not destroy it!” -Yuri Gagarin Fifty-two years ago today, the first human being left Earth, and we began our journey into outer space. But back in 1961, we didn’t really know how far outer space stretched, or…
What Matters about Dark Matter?
Posted by Ethan on April 10, 2013 
“A cosmic mystery of immense proportions, once seemingly on the verge of solution, has deepened and left astronomers and astrophysicists more baffled than ever. The crux… is that the vast majority of the mass of the universe seems to be missing.” -William J. Broad Three classic observations — the Hubble expansion of the Universe, the…
Messier Monday: A Dusty Open Cluster for Everyone, M25
Posted by Ethan on April 8, 2013 
“The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.” -Henry David Thoreau Welcome to another Messier Monday here on Starts With A Bang! Each week, we take a look at the…
It’ll take a lot more than AMS to find Dark Matter
Posted by Ethan on April 3, 2013 
“On what can we now place our hopes of solving the many riddles which still exist as to the origin and composition of cosmic rays?” -Victor Francis Hess We’ve come a tremendously long way in our understanding of the Universe, but there are plenty of mysteries still to be revealed. Way back in the late…
The Science of the Cosmic Microwave Background
Posted by Ethan on March 27, 2013 
“The radiation left over from the Big Bang is the same as that in your microwave oven but very much less powerful. It would heat your pizza only to -271.3°C, not much good for defrosting the pizza, let alone cooking it.” -Stephen Hawking One of the most powerful predictions of the Big Bang — the…
What Everyone Should Know about the Universe on the eve of Planck
Posted by Ethan on March 20, 2013 
“Scientific discovery and scientific knowledge have been achieved only by those who have gone in pursuit of it without any practical purpose whatsoever in view.” -Max Planck Tomorrow morning, at 8 AM my time, the press conference that cosmologists have spent the past decade waiting for will finally happen, and the Planck satellite — the…
Weekend Diversion: A Green Fire
Posted by Ethan on March 17, 2013 
“Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.” -Terry Pratchett Whether it comes from without or within, there are few things in this life that captivate our attention better than a brilliant, hot and colorful display.…
Why is it a big deal that the new LHC particle is verified as the Higgs?
Posted by Ethan on March 15, 2013 
“If you’re a reporter, the easiest thing in the world is to get a story. The hardest thing is to verify. The old sins were about getting something wrong, that was a cardinal sin. The new sin is to be boring.” -David Halberstam It was only a few months ago that both collaborations at the…
