science
Tag archives for science
Weekend Diversion: A contest, an upgrade and a chance to see me LIVE!
Posted by Ethan on June 9, 2012 
“Art has never been a popularity contest.” -James Levine Sometimes, you might feel like you’ve heard it all, seen it all, and that nothing’s original anymore. But I beg to differ. Just because great things have come before doesn’t mean that there aren’t great things happening right now. While it might “only” be a cover…
What is this all about?
Posted by Ethan on June 6, 2012 
“You don’t use science to show that you’re right, you use science to become right.” -Randall of xkcd In January of 2008, I began writing this blog, Starts With A Bang, both for myself and for all of you, because we all have something in common. The same planet, the same heavens, the same laws of nature and the…
What Lies in the great Pinwheel Galaxy?
Posted by Ethan on May 26, 2012 
“This seems to be the law of progress in everything we do; it moves along a spiral rather than a perpendicular; we seem to be actually going out of the way, and yet it turns out that we were really moving upward all the time.” -Frances Willard As spring gives way to summer here in…
Why Haven’t We Discovered the Higgs yet?
Posted by Ethan on April 3, 2012 “…the publisher wouldn’t let us call it the Goddamn Particle, though that might be a more appropriate title, given its villainous nature and the expense it is causing.” -Leon Lederman, author of The God Particle The Higgs Boson: you know the deal. It’s the last undiscovered particle in our current picture of all the fundamental…
And on the sixth day…
Posted by Ethan on May 14, 2008 Good news for science from… the Vatican? No joke. Father Gabriel Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory and chief astronomer for the Pope, has just issued a public statement stating the following things: Intelligent beings could exist in outer space. Life on Mars cannot be ruled out. The search for extraterrestrial life does not contradict…
Scientific Arguments
Posted by Ethan on May 13, 2008 Sometimes, I publish things on this website that are not entirely correct (and when I do, I’ll own up to it). Sometimes other people do on theirs. There are bad ways and good ways to argue these points, ranging from name-calling to explicitly explaining where the flaws are in one’s arguments, and what the corrections…
Avoiding Armageddon!
Posted by Ethan on May 8, 2008 Let’s say we’re having a nice day here on Earth; the Sun is shining, the clouds are sparse, and everything is just looking like a peach: And then Lucas goes and tells me, Oh my God, Ethan! It’s Armageddon! An asteroid is coming straight for us! You’ve got to stop it! Really? Me? Well, how…
What do Americans Believe?
Posted by Ethan on May 7, 2008 The American Association of Physics Teachers just published a study of 1,000 likely U.S. voters about science, religion, evolution, and creationism. The results are frightening. Here are some of the “highlights” of their study: 38% of Americans are in favor of the teaching of religion in public school science classrooms. 65% of Americans do not…
The Story of Neptune
Posted by Ethan on May 6, 2008 (This is adapted from my public lecture, Afraid of the Dark: How We Know What We Can’t See.) Let’s go back over 200 years ago, to 1781. William Herschel (left) discovered the planet Uranus, noticing that an object, as bright as a star, was actually moving relative to the other stars. The other five inner…
On String Theory from a String Theorist
Posted by Ethan on April 18, 2008 Bret Underwood, a friend of mine from my time in Madison, WI, saw my post on String Theory, and took issue with my statement that it wasn’t testable. I’m still standing behind what I said, but let’s address what Bret has to say. I don’t understand your argument above for why string theory is untestable.…
