esiegel

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Ethan Siegel

Ethan was born in New York City as the son of a Jewish postal worker. He did his undergrad at Northwestern, taught public school in Houston, Texas and Los Angeles, California, before moving to Florida, where he got his PhD in theoretical astrophysics at the University of Florida. After that, he moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where he taught at the University of Wisconsin, ate too much cheese, and also met his life partner, Jamie. After working in astrophysics research at the University of Arizona and starting the world-renowned science blog, Starts With A Bang, he moved from the hellish desert to rain-soaked Portland in 2008. Since then, he's been a professor at the University of Portland and Lewis & Clark College, grown a nationally renowned beard and mustache, got invited to join a circus and probably drank more beer than a healthy person should. He currently works as the head curator at Trapit, and can't wait to tell you a little bit more about the Universe.

Posts by this author

Happy Earth Day, 2011 Edition!
"We came all this way to explore the moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth." -Bill Anders, Apollo 8 Astronaut This Earth Day, I think -- for anyone interested in space, astronomy, or the Universe -- gives us perhaps the best opportunity to look back on our planet as we…
How Gravitational Lensing Shows Us Dark Matter!
"You may hate gravity, but gravity doesn't care." -Clayton Christensen What's the deal with gravity, dark matter, and this whole "lensing" business anyway? You've probably heard that energy -- most commonly mass -- bends light. And perhaps you've seen an image or two like this one to illustrate…
Telescope! Give me sight beyond sight!
"The lessons of science should be experimental also. The sight of a planet through a telescope is worth all the course on astronomy; the shock of the electric spark in the elbow outvalues all theories; the taste of the nitrous oxide, the firing of an artificial volcano, are better than volumes of…
Weekend Diversion: Time Lapse and a Dark Sky
"The loss of the night sky is most troubling for children. Whole generations of kids in cities and suburbs are growing up seldom if ever having seen the milky way and what a sky full of thousands of stars look like." -Timothy Ferris While Dave Chappelle will tell you that everything looks better in…
The Secrets of the Universe!
"All of nature begins to whisper its secrets to us through its sounds. Sounds that were previously incomprehensible to our soul now become the meaningful language of nature." -Rudolf Steiner For millenia, humans have looked to the heavens for answers about the cosmos. Image credit: ESO/S. Guisard…
Celebrating 50 years of humans in space!
"I could have gone on flying through space forever." -Yuri Gagarin It was April 12th, 1961, or fifty years ago today, that Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to leave Earth -- the ground, the atmosphere, the stratosphere -- and to soar into outer space. Image credit: GETTY images. What was…
The Deepest Shadows in our own Backyard
"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." -William Shakespeare Ahh, the glorious shadows of our Universe. Everywhere that sunlight is blocked gives…
Whom Do You Trust For Your Science, Health, and Education?
"School sucks, right? I mean you do what you can to improve it, but in the end, there's a limit. Because it's school. And 'school sucks.' Remember?" -Louis C.K. At every level, education always seems to be a hot button issue. Whether it's in primary and secondary schools, where testing at every…
Have we Discovered New Physics?!?!!
"Although important nuclear physics work was to go on in laboratories such as ours had become - and we had to cut down to a lower energy group - it was not fundamentally opening up new insights on the structure of matter. That required you to be in a higher league." -John Henry Carver Okay, before…
Fun with Colliding Galaxies!
"Where there is an observatory and a telescope, we expect that any eyes will see new worlds at once." -Henry David Thoreau This past weekend, the Astronomy Picture of the Day was a remarkable shot of the giant spiral galaxy NGC 6872, taken by the Gemini Telescope. (It's not Hubble, but Gemini is…
Weekend Diversion: Petition to Save Hubble!
Intel Science Talent Search Winner: Mr. Bush, please save Hubble. Then-President Bush: Is Hubble in trouble? Oh my, yes, for those of you who don't know, Hubble is, in fact, in trouble once again. To set the mood, I've got one of the best songs about it: Ray LaMontagne's Trouble. For the…
Oh, no! There goes Tokyo...
"This is Tokyo. Once a city of six million people. What has happened here was caused by a force which up until a few days ago was entirely beyond the scope of Man's imagination." -Steve Martin What was once only in the realm of our wildest science-fiction fantasies has become a nightmare come true…
What are the odds? Part 3: The Big Bang!
"It took less than an hour to make the atoms, a few hundred million years to make the stars and planets, but five billion years to make man!" -George Gamow Some people are never satisfied. After I wrote last time on the odds for cosmic inflation, I started noticing a flurry of comments on an older…
Do You Know Your Nearest Star Cluster?
"If it were worth the while to settle in those parts near to the Pleiades or the Hyades, to Aldebaran or Altair, then I was really there, or at an equal remoteness from the life which I had left behind, dwindled and twinkling with as fine a ray to my nearest neighbor, and to be seen only in…
Weekend Diversion: Seeing Anything New This Weekend?
"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more." -Lord Byron All over the world, Earth Hour has fallen, and it's about to, imminently, here in…
How Hydrogen Teaches Us the Temperature of Dark Matter!
"Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe." -Frank Zappa Oh yeah, Zappa? Well, let me show you what hydrogen can do…
An Amazing Look at the Northern Lights!
"I came from the country, and when I came to the city, I was ridin' high, you know. I was seeing more lights than I ever dreamed to shine in the world. 'Cos where I came from, there wasn't too many lights. Bugs made a lot of light, but after that there wasn't no lights." -John Hunter John Hunter…
Nuclear Power: Fiction, Fear, and Facts
"And Lord, we are especially thankful for nuclear power, the cleanest, safest energy source there is. Except for solar, which is just a pipe dream." -Homer Simpson If you've been reading or watching the news, you've probably been hearing a whole lot of information about the Fukushima Nuclear Power…
Japan Earthquake & Tsunami: Relief and Charity!
"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?" -Rabbi Hillel As you all know, it has been one week since the devastating earthquake first struck Japan. And the damage is simply horrific. The death toll is in the thousands (if not the tens of…
What the Hell is a Supermoon?
"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." -Anton Chekhov Ahh, Chekhov, you old sour puss, what do you have against the brilliance of our Moon? Beautiful in our sky, the Moon typically takes up half-a-degree in the night sky, where it's by far the largest and…
What are the odds? Part 2: Cosmic Inflation!
"It is said that there's no such thing as a free lunch. But the Universe is the ultimate free lunch." -Alan Guth We've talked about the Big Bang too many times to count, and why it's easily the leading theory regarding the origin of the Universe. It's the only cosmic idea we have that can explain…
Why Physics Gives Us Earthquakes!
"You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake." -Jeannette Rankin As you all surely know, an 8.9 magnitude earthquake just struck Japan, devastating the island of Honshu. Before and after images link at abc.net.au. Ask a geologist, and they'll rightly tell you about plate tectonics,…
Weekend Diversion: A Letter to Lil Wayne
"The makers of entertainment must try, in our field, to be honest and grown-up." -Elia Kazan There's a lot of negativity in the world lately, from natural disasters to social, political, and economic strife. But this week also saw the 100th International Women's Day go by, and what I saw was so…
Know, know know, kno-know, know your brightest stars!
Well, don't you know I'm gonna skate right through Ain't nobody do it but me Nobody but me -The Human Beinz If you're only a casual watcher of the night sky, you might have no idea what the brightest stars are. Sure, if you're in the northern hemisphere, you probably recognize the Big Dipper, the…
Double Eclipses on Jupiter: The Picture I Really Want!
"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." -Galileo Galilei Ever since the time of Galileo, Jupiter has been an amazing sight for skywatchers. With its four large moons, even the smallest of amateur telescopes provide amazing sights. In fact, if…
Dark Matter requires you to THINK BIG!
"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less." -Marie Curie Were you here last week, when I wrote about MOND and dark matter, and in particular what the supreme failings of MOND are? Apparently, right here on…
Weekend Diversion: From Russia, With Love?
"Blessed be Providence which has given to each his toy: the doll to the child, the child to the woman, the woman to the man, the man to the devil!" -Victor Hugo   I don't know how many of you have ever had the experience of listening to all your music on shuffle, had a song come on, and then…
What are the odds? Part 1: that the LHC will find SUSY
"The subject of gambling is all encompassing. It combines man's natural play instinct with his desire to know about his fate and his future." -Franz Rosenthal Last month, Sean Carroll asked the blogosphere to give their personal odds on whether various theories will turn out to be true or not. And…
The Moon's Great Crater Chains
"Old men and comets have been reverenced for the same reason: their long beards, and pretenses to foretell events." -Jonathan Swift Last week, I showed you the new, highest-resolution mosaic ever made of the near side of the Moon. And I also showed you a small, somewhat unusual feature that I…
Good ideas, Bad ideas, MOND, and Dark Matter
"There's an old saying about those who forget history. I don't remember it, but it's good." -Stephen Colbert Let me start by telling you a story about an old problem. Take a look at the planet Mercury, one of the five planets (not counting Earth) visible in our night sky to the naked eye. And I…