Dark Energy
Tag archives for Dark Energy
“Einstein’s Greatest Blunder” was REALLY a blunder!
Posted by Ethan on May 17, 2013 
“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” -Albert Einstein Back when Einstein first proposed his theory of General Relativity, his revolutionary picture of the Universe was met with a mix of curiosity, awe, and intense skepticism. It isn’t every day that your most cherished of all physical theories — the…
What Makes Up The Universe?
Posted by Ethan on April 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…
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…
What The Entire Universe Is Made Of, Thanks to Planck!
Posted by Ethan on March 21, 2013 
“Much later, when I discussed the problem with Einstein, he remarked that the introduction of the cosmological term was the biggest blunder he ever made in his life. But this “blunder,” rejected by Einstein, is still sometimes used by cosmologists even today, and the cosmological constant denoted by the Greek letter Λ rears its ugly…
How Big is Our Observable Universe?
Posted by Ethan on March 1, 2013 
“The mind, once expanded to the dimensions of larger ideas, never returns to its original size.” -Oliver Wendell Holmes When General Relativity supplanted Newton’s work as our theory of how gravity works in the Universe, it didn’t just change how we view how masses attract, it gave us a new understanding of what the questions where…
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!…
Answering ALL Your Questions
Posted by Ethan on December 14, 2012 
“And in the end The love you take Is equal to the love you make.” -Paul McCartney Every once in a while, I throw the chance out there (on facebook, twitter, or google+) to ask me whatever questions you want. Yesterday, for some insane reason, I invited people across all three platforms to ask me whatever…
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…
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…
