big bang
Tag archives for big bang
What is the Big Bang all about?
Posted by Ethan on June 12, 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…
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…
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!…
The Halloween Horror of the Dark Universe!
Posted by Ethan on October 31, 2012 
“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 Despite the wondrous, luminous sights of the night sky, we’ve…
What Happened Before The Big Bang?
Posted by Ethan on October 15, 2012 
“The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error.” -Bertolt Brecht One of the most frequent questions I get about the Universe — as a cosmologist — isn’t quite about the Big Bang in and of itself. The Big Bang is a remarkable…
Why I am a liar straight from the pit of hell
Posted by Ethan on October 5, 2012 
“It took less than an hour to make the atoms, a few hundred million years to make the stars and planets, but five billion years to make man!” -George Gamow Earlier today, a video (from last month) was released where one of the members of the US House of Representative — a member who sits…
It’s never too late… to discover science!
Posted by Ethan on September 14, 2012 
“I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like to be taught.” -Winston Churchill My very first time leading a classroom – on my own — was back in June of 2000. I was 21 years old, fresh out of college, and was teaching science in a middle school classroom. And I…
How Big is the Entire Universe?
Posted by Ethan on July 18, 2012 
“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” -Stephen Hawking The Universe is a vast, seemingly unending marvel of existence. Over the past century, we’ve learned that the Universe stretches out beyond the billions of stars in our Milky Way, out across billions of light years, containing close to…
Explaining the Higgs: on TV last night!
Posted by Ethan on July 5, 2012 
“We knew that we had indeed done something that was very different and very exciting, but we still didn’t expect it to have something to do with physical reality.” -Gerald Guralnik, co-developer of the Higgs mechanism Might as well make this entire week “Higgs week” here on Starts With A Bang, given how important yesterday’s…
How to Destroy the Entire Universe
Posted by Ethan on April 23, 2008 Since the dawn of time man has yearned to destroy the sun. – C. M. Burns There’s no need to stop at the Sun, though. Since yesterday was Earth day, I thought it was only appropriate to spend today telling you how not only to destroy the Earth, but to effectively destroy the entire Universe.…
