June 18, 2014
“Soccer matches should be something special, something people eagerly look forward to, something that brightens life.” -P. J. O’Rourke
Well, my World Cup fanatics, the time is upon us. The 2014 World Cup is here and off to a spectacular start! No doubt, some of you have incredibly fond memories of…
June 16, 2014
“It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.” -Neil Armstrong
When you think about the faintest object in the Messier catalogue -- which…
June 15, 2014
“I guess I just prefer to see the dark side of things. The glass is always half-empty. And cracked. And I just cut my lip on it. And chipped a tooth.” -Janeane Garofalo
During the week, it's all about the natural wonders of the Universe here, about what we know and how we know it, and about our…
June 14, 2014
"The real deal is always going to win in the end." -Bill Hybels
I always do my best to cut through the hype and give it to you straight here at Starts With A Bang, and that means telling you the secrets of the Universe and the truth about our physical reality to the absolute best of our knowledge.…
June 14, 2014
“Sometimes a person has to go a very long distance out of his way to come back a short distance correctly.” -Edward Albee
Every week on Ask Ethan, we've been taking a look at my favorites of the questions you send in. And one of the things you've been wondering about is this: when we look at an…
June 12, 2014
“I see miracles all around me
Stop and look, it’s all astounding
Water, fire, air and dirt
Fucking magnets, how do they work?” -Insane Clown Posse
Oh, Insane Clown Posse, is there any amount of education that could ever change you? On the one hand, magnetism is a lot more counterintuitive than…
June 12, 2014
“You cannot, in human experience, rush into the light. You have to go through the twilight into the broadening day before the noon comes and the full sun is upon the landscape.” -Woodrow Wilson
You might think of black holes as cosmic rarities, but the fact of the matter is that pretty much every…
June 10, 2014
“It’s a brilliant surface in that sunlight. The horizon seems quite close to you because the curvature is so much more pronounced than here on earth. It’s an interesting place to be. I recommend it.” -Neil Armstrong
Whether it's a job, a college/University, a scholarship or a competitive program,…
June 9, 2014
“Conceit spoils the finest genius. There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long; even if it is, the consciousness of possessing and using it well should satisfy one, and the great charm of all power is modesty.” -Louisa May Alcott
On Messier Monday, we take a look…
June 8, 2014
“I saw for the first time the earth’s shape. I could easily see the shores of continents, islands, great rivers, folds of the terrain, large bodies of water. The horizon is dark blue, smoothly turning to black. . . the feelings which filled me I can express with one word—joy.” -Yuri Gagarin
Most…
June 7, 2014
"All one can really leave one's children is what's inside their heads. Education, in other words, and not earthly possessions, is the ultimate legacy, the only thing that cannot be taken away." -Wernher von Braun
After another outstanding week here at Starts With A Bang, it's time to take a…
June 6, 2014
“If you are a dreamer come in
If you are a dreamer a wisher a liar
A hoper a pray-er a magic-bean-buyer
If youre a pretender com sit by my fire
For we have some flax golden tales to spin
Come in!
Come in!” -Shel Silverstein
There are fakers out there of all types, to be sure. But one of the most…
June 5, 2014
“There is nothing more contemptible than a bald man who pretends to have hair.” -Martial
There's nothing worse in the world of science than spending your life working your heart out on a problem... and getting scooped by someone who did your work just a little bit faster and a little bit better.…
June 4, 2014
“There is just one thing I can promise you about the outer-space program — your tax-dollar will go further.” -Wernher von Braun
Over the past 100 years, we've gone from looking out at a Universe whose very nature -- the stars, nebulae, and even the planets -- were virtually unknown to us. And…
June 3, 2014
“I realise now that I wanted to disappear. To get so lost that nobody ever found me. To go so far away that I’d never be able to make my way home again. But I have no idea why.” -Jessica Warman
When you think about the galaxies up there in the night sky, only visible with the most powerful…
June 2, 2014
“But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your eyes and hand, and fly into your face and eyes.” -John Adams
Not every swarm is a danger, however, particularly if…
June 1, 2014
“I call it like the domino theory of reality. If you can go one step at a time and it seems to make sense, you can then take your audience into an area that is relatively outlandish.” -Ivan Reitman
There's a special joy that I get when you start with something very simple, make slight variations…
May 31, 2014
“Einstein, my upset stomach hates your theory — it almost hates you yourself! How am I to' provide for my students? What am I to answer to the philosophers?!!” -Paul Ehrenfest
It's been another great week here at Starts With A Bang, and we've shed light on a number of wonders of the Universe, from…
May 30, 2014
“They say the universe is expanding. That should help with the traffic.” -Steven Wright
When you think of the expanding Universe, you very likely think of galaxies moving away from one another, of space getting stretched, and quite possibly, of light redshifting as it travels through this expanding…
May 29, 2014
“Oh leave the Wise our measures to collate. One thing at least is certain, light has weight. One thing is certain and the rest debate. Light rays, when near the Sun, do not go straight.” -Arthur Eddington
It might seem like General Relativity has been around forever, but it's been less than a…
May 28, 2014
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” -Maya Angelou, R.I.P.
It isn't often that I post a time-lapse video for you to enjoy, but then again it isn't often that I find one as well-constructed and…
May 27, 2014
“Science casts a long black shadow back over who we think we are, and where it falls the temperature falls with it. Its touch is chilly and unforgiving.” -Richard K. Morgan
Here on Earth, when we're dealing with normal matter, it's relatively easy to measure the temperature of something. Even if…
May 26, 2014
“Man must rise above the Earth, to the top of the atmosphere and beyond, for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives.” -Socrates
It's hard to believe that it's been nearly two years since we started our Messier Monday series, and so with only 110 objects to go through, we're…
May 25, 2014
“Some people think that the truth can be hidden with a little cover-up and decoration. But as time goes by, what is true is revealed, and what is fake fades away.” -Ismail Haniyeh
You might have thought that it's only human standards of beauty that are skewed by the rampant photoshopping of models…
May 24, 2014
"To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palms of your hand and eternity in an hour." -William Blake
Another week is behind us here at Starts With A Bang, and not only has the Universe been particularly kind to us, but you've had plenty to talk about. Over…
May 23, 2014
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” -Maya Angelou
From questions about the smallest scales to the largest, from Earthly phenomena to things we could only conceive of in theory, our Ask Ethan series is your opportunity to have anything you ask considered for a column…
May 22, 2014
“These neutrino observations are so exciting and significant that I think we’re about to see the birth of an entirely new branch of astronomy: neutrino astronomy.” -John Bahcall
From the Hubble expansion of the Universe to isotropy and homogeneity to the light elements to the leftover radiation…
May 22, 2014
“In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” -Douglas Adams
So, you think you know about the beginning. About where everything came from, about how our Universe got its start. As my very blog is titled, it "Starts With…
May 20, 2014
“I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.” -Jack London
Here on Earth, we think of shooting stars and meteor showers as things that happen periodically; sometimes they're spectacular, sometimes…
May 19, 2014
“Ali always said I would be nothing without him. But what would he have been without me?” -Joe Frazier
We don't normally think of deep-sky objects -- seemingly fixed structures in the sky -- as fighting for their lives, but when you're a spiral galaxy caught in a gravitational storm, that's exactly…
