October 16, 2014
“Between cold fusion and respectable science there is virtually no communication at all. …because the Cold-Fusioners see themselves as a community under siege, there is little internal criticism. Experiments and theories tend to be accepted at face value, for fear of providing even more fuel for…
October 16, 2014
“There’s a mark born every minute, and one to trim ‘em and one to knock ‘em.” -David W. Maurer, The Big Con (1940)
But how could you tell? There's lots of amazing science going on out there, and none of us can be experts in it all. Moreover, even when we think we know how things ought to behave,…
October 13, 2014
“For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures. And we are all mortal.” -John F. Kennedy
If you went back in time to the birth of the Sun and the Solar System, what would you see?…
October 12, 2014
“Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and…
October 11, 2014
"No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish." -David Hume
It's sometimes mind-boggling how many different aspects of the Universe we touch on here at Starts With…
October 11, 2014
“Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.” -T.H. Huxley
It's said that nothing lasts forever, and as far as we can tell, this is true. Every living thing that…
October 9, 2014
“But certainly the laser proved to be what I realized it was going to be. At that moment in my life I was too ignorant in business law to be able to do it right, and if I did it over again probably the same damn thing would happen.” -Gordon Gould, inventor of the LASER
If you want the best…
October 9, 2014
“In physics, you don’t have to go around making trouble for yourself — nature does it for you.” -Frank Wilczek
Freedom is an easy thing for almost all the particles we think of. Want a free photon? Just let it go in a place where there's nothing that's going to absorb it. A free electron? Just keep…
October 7, 2014
“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies… Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die… It doesn’t matter what you do, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands…
October 6, 2014
“I love the sea’s sounds and the way it reflects the sky. The colours that shimmer across its surface are unbelievable.” -John Dyer
When you look up into the night sky, most of the fixed, non-stellar objects you see are faint, extended and diffuse. One of the things that surprises most skywatchers…
October 5, 2014
“While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary.” -Chinua Achebe
When you think of charitable enterprises, you probably think of things like eradicating hunger, poverty, or disease of some sort. After all, that's…
October 5, 2014
“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” -Albert Einstein
After a wide-ranging week here on Starts With A Bang, it's only fair to take a look at what conversations this has sparked among all of you, and to jump in where there's a good opportunity…
October 3, 2014
“A single day is enough to make us a little larger or, another time, a little smaller.” -Paul Klee
As the time passes for us all, and we age, so too does everything else in the Universe. For an object like a black hole, it has the potential to form, grow or shrink as we move forward.
Image credit…
October 2, 2014
“The mind, once expanded to the dimensions of larger ideas, never returns to its original size.” -Oliver Wendell Holmes
But it isn't just your mind that expands as time goes on and you increase your knowledge, but the entire Universe as well. General Relativity, as it turns out, doesn't leave us…
October 2, 2014
“Language… has created the word ‘loneliness’ to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word ‘solitude’ to express the glory of being alone.” -Paul Tillich
One of the biggest questions in all of science is that of just how ubiquitous -- or rare -- life in the Universe is. With the…
September 30, 2014
When you think about it, it wasn't all that long ago -- just 50 years -- that we didn't know where our Universe came from. A hot, dense early state? A cyclical, swirling past? Or perhaps a time-independent one, where the Universe back then was not so different from our own today? All that changed…
September 30, 2014
When it comes to physics, there sure are some strange theories -- and even stranger phenomena -- out there. The notion that particles don't have fixed, intrinsic properties that are simultaneously measurable can only be described as weird, and the fact that you can add as much energy as you want to…
September 29, 2014
“The only thing I have learnt over the years is that if you enjoy your work and put in the best efforts, it will show. If you follow this process, things work out. But if you go chasing a formula, success will elude you.” -Mahesh Babu
When you know something is there but you can't find it for…
September 28, 2014
“You can clean your sword as much as you want but the blood still stains it.” -Matsuro
I can't count for you the number of shirts I've ruined through spills and other stains. Have a listen to José González's song,
Lovestain,
while you consider what you'd do if you got a stain on your clothes. I'd…
September 27, 2014
“Everything comes at the right time, but if the right time is too late to be patient, go earlier before it becomes too late.” -Michael Bassey Johnson
After another fun-and-science-filled week here on Starts With A Bang, where we've covered topics ranging from near-to-far, from historical to very…
September 26, 2014
“I sometimes catch myself looking up at the Moon, remembering the changes of fortune in our long voyage, thinking of the thousands of people who worked to bring the three of us home. I look up at the moon and wonder, when will we be going back, and who will that be?” -Tom Hanks
Imagine, hopefully,…
September 25, 2014
“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
The story of where everything came from in the Universe -- of how we came…
September 25, 2014
“Don’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.” -Darth Vader
Supervillains always disappoint me. With ambitions like murdering a single human, destroying a city, or endangering all life on the…
September 23, 2014
When you think of astrology today, you probably think of someone who makes false promises and proclaims either platitudes or fabrications as though they were preordained truths. But for many millennia dating to just a few centuries ago, astrology was anything but. In fact, by many metrics, it was…
September 23, 2014
When it comes to Einstein, the first thought that comes to people's mind is usually relativity -- either special or general -- or perhaps his famous E = mc^2. (Except for Anupam Garg; my old classical mechanics professor used to joke that Einstein's greatest contribution to physics was his…
September 22, 2014
“A hungry man can’t see right or wrong. He just sees food.” -Pearl S. Buck
But what of a hungry galaxy? As it turns out, pretty much anywhere in space, it's the biggest galaxies that are the hungriest, seeing all their smaller, neighboring galaxies as food. This was the case for the Sagittarius…
September 21, 2014
“I created this project for fun. Initially, I had no business goals with it. I created this project recently. I was and still am a teenager myself, that is why I had a certain feeling of what other teenagers would want to see on the Internet. I myself enjoyed talking to friends with Skype using a…
September 21, 2014
“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.” -Sylvia Plath
It's been two weeks since our last edition of our Comments of the Week, and from the heartbreaking to the mystifying, there's a lot we've written about and explored together. If you missed anything, go…
September 19, 2014
“From earliest times, humans — explorers and thinkers — have wanted to figure out the shape of their world. Forever, the way we’ve done that is through storytelling. It is difficult to let the truth get in the way of a good story.” -Adam Savage
When we look back into the Universe, there's a…
September 18, 2014
“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.” -Carl Sagan
That might be true: all the heavy elements -- in theory -- were created after at least one generation of…
