November 8, 2010
"I suppose I'll open a bottle of something if they find it." -Peter Higgs
Alright, all you quarks and leptons in the house. I'm looking at you in particular, up quark, down quark, and the electron. The up and down quarks combine to make up the proton and neutron, while the electron combines with…
November 7, 2010
"She said believe in yourself and believe in your dreams. I took away those words and will keep them in my memory for a lifetime." -Dominique Dawes
Every weekend, I try to come to you with a story that is a break from the regular physics and astronomy stuff I write about. This weekend, I was…
November 5, 2010
"I have just gone over my comet computations again, and it is humiliating to perceive how very little more I know than I did seven years ago when I first did this kind of work." -Maria Mitchell, Astronomer
If you were around back in 1997, perhaps you remembered seeing Comet Hartley 2 back then, as…
November 4, 2010
"We hates it, we hates it, we hates it for ever!" -Gollum, from the Hobbit
Don't get me wrong. The Higgs is an absolutely wonderful mechanism, and I've very optimistic that the last particle of the standard model -- the Higgs Boson -- will be found over the next few years, either at the Large…
November 2, 2010
"Every man is free to rise as far as he's able or willing, but the degree to which he thinks determines the degree to which he'll rise." -Ayn Rand
We're all aware that one of the ways that human life on Earth could end, conceivably, is the same way that the dinosaurs went down.
And asteroid…
October 31, 2010
"Dusty Rhodes, do you think you're what our forefathers were thinking about when they thought up the American Dream? Ooooh, yeah, I don't think so."
-Macho Man Randy Savage
Those of you who've known me for any length of time know that Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, and know that I put a…
October 29, 2010
"People fear death even more than pain. It's strange that they fear death. Life hurts a lot more than death. At the point of death, the pain is over. Yeah, I guess it is a friend." -Jim Morrison
Yes, Jim Morrison, some people are quite strange, too.
People Are StrangeBut that's not what I'm talking…
October 27, 2010
"Really, the fundamental, ultimate mystery -- the only thing you need to know to understand the deepest metaphysical secrets -- is this: that for every outside there is an inside and for every inside there is an outside, and although they are different, they go together." -Alan Watts
We've talked,…
October 23, 2010
"In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms." -Stephen Jay Gould
It's been almost three years since I…
October 21, 2010
"I don't think we came from monkeys. I think that's ridiculous. I haven't seen a half-monkey, half-person yet." -Glenn Beck
I don't often write about biology here, but as many of you know, I often write about the history of the Universe, and that includes the Sun, the planets of the Solar System,…
October 20, 2010
"The laws in this city are clearly racist. All laws are racist. The law of gravity is racist." -Marion Barry
The law of gravity, contrary to what Marion Barry says, is -- perhaps -- the most indiscriminate of all the laws of nature.
What do I mean? Well, you get a large collection of matter and…
October 19, 2010
"It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time." -Winston Churchill
And yet, when you look out, you can't help but wonder how far away these points of light in the sky are.
Some things are easy. Our Solar System, for instance. Just by knowing…
October 17, 2010
"The Dancer believes that his art has something to say which cannot be expressed in words or in any other way than by dancing... there are times when the simple dignity of movement can fulfill the function of a volume of words." -Doris Humphrey
I don't know what the weather is like for the rest of…
October 15, 2010
"The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us." -T. H. Huxley
There's an amazing interactive application on the Scale of the Universe that was just pointed out to…
October 14, 2010
Calvin: Why does the sky turn red as the sun sets?
Calvin's Dad: That's all the oxygen in the atmosphere catching fire.
Calvin: Where does the sun go when it sets?
Calvin's Dad: The sun sets in the west. In Arizona actually, near Flagstaff. That's why the rocks there are so red.
Calvin: Don't the…
October 11, 2010
"I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." -Isaac Newton
"Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out in the…
October 9, 2010
"If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that... I believe in what I do, and I'll say it."
-John Lennon
John Lennon, assassinated thirty years ago, would have been 70 today. Sometimes, a simple song can say it better than any…
October 8, 2010
"You can't have a light without a dark to stick it in." -Arlo Guthrie
You know the story. Every galaxy we look out at, with hardly any exceptions, appears to be moving away from us. Not only that, but the farther away a galaxy appears to be, the faster it appears to move away from us!
What do we…
October 7, 2010
"Imperfection clings to a person, and if they wait till they are brushed off entirely, they would spin for ever on their axis, advancing nowhere." -Thomas Carlyle
When you take a look up at the sky, the two most prominent objects are the Sun and the Moon.
And every day, like clockwork, they rise…
October 5, 2010
"Neutrinos, they are very small.
They have no charge and have no mass
And do not interact at all.
The earth is just a silly ball
To them, through which they simply pass,
Like dustmaids down a drafty hall
Or photons through a piece of glass." -John Updike
It was so much fun talking about neutrinos…
October 2, 2010
Mission control: You need to bend your knees a little more. Keep your head down.
Alan Shepard: I'm... wearing a space suit.
Mission control: Just trying to help.
Apollo 14, the third crew ever to land on the Moon, pulled one of the most iconic stunts of all time.
Along with Stuart Roosa (left) and…
September 29, 2010
"Goldilocks was hungry. She tasted the porridge from the first bowl.
'This porridge is too hot!' she exclaimed.
So, she tasted the porridge from the second bowl.
'This porridge is too cold,' she said.
So, she tasted the last bowl of porridge.
'Ahhh, this porridge is just right,' she said happily…
September 27, 2010
"I know all about neutrinos, and my friend here knows about everything else in astrophysics." -John Bahcall
Neutrinos are the most poorly understood particles in the standard model. Remember the standard model?
The standard model of elementary particles tells us what the fundamental constituents…
September 26, 2010
"You lost your way
I tried to find it for you
A brighter day to clear your name
The thing is where you are and
Where you're going is the same" -Storyhill
Those of you who've been listening to the songs I post each weekend may remember this week's band, Storyhill. (They have a new album out, BTW.)…
September 24, 2010
"Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar." -Drew Carey
When you think of a galaxy, you probably think of a bright, dense core with huge, swirling outstretched spiral arms. Something, perhaps, like the Silverado…
September 23, 2010
"But now it's gettin' late
And the moon is climbin' high.
I want to celebrate
See it shinin' in your eye." -Neil Young
The full Moon, beautiful as it is, isn't really all that rare!
Once every 29-30 days, the Moon returns to a completely full phase, where the entire "day side" of the Moon (the…
September 22, 2010
"Nothing travels faster than light, with the possible exception of bad news, which follows its own rules." -Douglas Adams
Every once in a while, a star in our own galaxy can do something to surprise us. Over in the constellation of the Unicorn lived a quiet, run-of-the-mill star named V838…
September 19, 2010
"On the chess-board lies and hypocrisy do not survive long." -Emanuel Lasker
Along with art, music, math, and sports, it's well known that the game of Chess is one of the best activities a child can engage in to develop their mind. I can think of no better song than Kings and Queens by Loudon…
September 17, 2010
"I feel the earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumbling down
I feel my heart start to trembling
Whenever you're around" -Carole King
I had so much fun earlier this week telling you about how we know that the heliocentric model is better than the geocentric one, that I thought I'd go a little…
September 15, 2010
"It doesn't matter what temperature the room is, it's always room temperature."
-Steven Wright
Far and away, one of the greatest things the Universe has ever created are dense clusters of galaxies!
The Coma Cluster, shown above, is a classic example of one of these colossal objects. (And as always…
