June 18, 2011
"Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only weapon against bad ideas is better ideas." -Alfred Whitney Griswold
Those of you who read my weekend post have some inkling that I'm a bit of a…
June 17, 2011
"What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning." -Werner Heisenberg
Looking down at the fundamental nature of matter, down past our cells and organelles, deep into the individual molecules and inside of the atoms that make them up, at long last, you get to…
June 16, 2011
"He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast." -Leonardo Da Vinci
It's often lonely, these days, as a theorist. As soon as most people hear the word theory, in fact, they start thinking about something like…
June 14, 2011
"It is one of life's bitterest truths that bedtime so often arrives just when things are really getting interesting." -Lemony Snicket
Those of you who live basically anywhere other than North America are in for a treat this Wednesday. All over Earth, of course, the Moon is nearing its "full" phase…
June 12, 2011
"We're always on the side of the animal that's being chased. We always seem to be on the side of the rabbit or the fox and not on the side of the hounds." -Norman Jewison
For those of you who are fans of Punk Rock, Post-Punk, or New Wave music, you definitely need to check out the French group,…
June 10, 2011
"The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires." -William Arthur Ward
Every so often, people get up-in-arms about teaching and education in college. New studies come out, new methods are touted and tried, curricula get revised,…
June 8, 2011
"This nebula had such a resemblance to a comet in its form and brightness that I endeavored to find others, so that astronomers would not confuse these same nebulae with comets just beginning to shine." -Charles Messier
Astronomers have been scouring the skies for new discoveries since long before…
June 6, 2011
"As far as I see, such a theory [of the Big Bang] remains entirely outside any metaphysical or religious question. It leaves the materialist free to deny any transcendental Being. He may keep, for the bottom of space-time, the same attitude of mind he has been able to adopt for events occurring in…
June 3, 2011
"Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike." -Alexander Pope
As you know, last weekend I was on vacation at a certain music festival, and of course, a good time…
June 3, 2011
"It is no good getting furious if you get stuck. What I do is keep thinking about the problem but work on something else. Sometimes it is years before I see the way forward. In the case of information loss and black holes, it was 29 years." -Stephen Hawking
When we look out at the Universe, you…
June 1, 2011
"The very closest stars would require many years to visit, even traveling at the speed of light, which is impossible according to Einstein's theory of relativity. Today's fastest spaceships would require 200,000 years to travel to Alpha Centauri, our closest bright star. The energy required to send…
May 25, 2011
"Too much work, and no vacation,
Deserves at least a small libation.
So hail! my friends, and raise your glasses,
Work's the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
It may seem like it's been forever since I've taken a vacation, because it has been. So this coming Memorial Day Weekend, I'm…
May 25, 2011
"We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special." -Stephen Hawking
You're probably familiar with the standard picture of our Universe. You've heard it all before: that the Universe we know…
May 24, 2011
"If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens... Where Is Everybody?" -Stephen Webb
As egocentric as we are, we know that not only are we but one planet of many orbiting our Sun, but that when we look up in the heavens, every point of light we see is another chance -- another opportunity -- for planets,…
May 22, 2011
"There is nothing more contemptible than a bald man who pretends to have hair." -Martial
It's been far too long since I introduced you to a great musical artist you may not have heard of, so let's get right to that. Kristin Hersch, famed leader of the punk/alternative band Throwing Muses (which she…
May 20, 2011
"We all need to look into the dark side of our nature - that's where the energy is, the passion. People are afraid of that because it holds pieces of us we're busy denying." -Sue Grafton
No, not the dark side of our nature, just the dark side of nature! Because if all our Universe were made out of…
May 18, 2011
"There is also an amplitude for light to go faster (or slower) than the conventional speed of light. You found out... that light doesn't go only in straight lines; now, you find out that it doesn't go only at the speed of light! It may surprise you that there is an amplitude for a photon to go at…
May 16, 2011
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice. -Robert Frost
Sure, if all we're talking about is the…
May 14, 2011
"I'm going to fight if you touch me or hurt me or do harm to my family. But if you call me a bad name, or whatnot, I'm too smart for that. That's the message the kids need to hear coming from me. I tell them, 'If I fought every time somebody called me a name, I would never get out of jail. But I'm…
May 13, 2011
"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea." -Antoine de Saint-Exupery
For me, personally, it isn't the endless immensity of the seas that calls. It's the endless…
May 11, 2011
"Master looks after us now, we don't need you anymore. Leave now and never come back!" -Smeagol, LOTR
You all know how to find the farthest galaxy ever, right? You take the most powerful telescope in the world, put it into space, and have it stare into the darkness for days on end. What do you find…
May 9, 2011
John Oliver: So, roughly speaking, what are the chances that the world is going to be destroyed? One-in-a-million? One-in-a-billion?Walter Wagner: Well, the best we can say right now is a one-in-two chance.John: 50-50?Walter: Yeah, 50-50... It's a chance, it's a 50-50 chance.John: You come back to…
May 7, 2011
"If you're going to do something tonight that you'll be sorry for tomorrow morning, sleep late." -Henny Youngman
Normally, the best wonders of the night sky -- stars, planets and beyond -- happen, well, late at night. But every once in a while, it's actually the very early morning sky that holds…
May 6, 2011
"God does not play dice with the Universe." -Einstein
"Einstein, don't tell God what to do." -Neils Bohr (disputed, but awesome)
Einstein, the brilliant mind behind general relativity and the concept of "spacetime," is making the news again this week. As you all know, gravity isn't some mysterious…
May 4, 2011
"You still don't get it, do you? He'll find her! That's what he does! That's ALL he does! You can't stop him!" -Kyle Reese, the Terminator
Now that we've all survived Judgment Day, we can stop looking for ways to stop the Terminators, and go back to the search for dark matter. Let's back up a bit,…
May 2, 2011
"I have departed from this planet and I have left behind my poor earthly ones with their occupations which are as many as they are useless; at last I am living in the scintillating splendor of the stars, each of which used to seem to me as large as millions of suns." -Jules Massenet
Each star in…
April 30, 2011
"Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you."
-William Arthur Ward
Here at my college, as well as at all those colleges and Universities on the semester system, the academic year is…
April 28, 2011
"Listen; there's a hell of a good universe next door: let's go." -e. e. cummings
Sometimes, you just need to take stock of what we know, and appreciate how far we've come. A hundred years ago, we thought the Universe consisted of the stars and nebulae in our Milky Way. We thought Newton's Law of…
April 26, 2011
"Science for me is very close to art. Scientific discovery is an irrational act. It's an intuition which turns out to be reality at the end of it -- and I see no difference between a scientist developing a marvelous discovery and an artist making a painting." -Carlo Rubbia, famous and infamous…
April 24, 2011
"Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are." -Kurt Cobain
Back in the early 1990s, not only a new sound, but also a new attitude emerged in Rock 'n' Roll. One that was dark and heavy, one that expressed the frustration and malaise of youth, and one that -- perhaps surprisingly --…
