July 23, 2010
"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light." -Plato
Imagine, if you will, the year 2200. Forget about the flying cars and robotic exoskeletons, though. I'm thinking about the incredible scientific tools we'll have at our…
July 22, 2010
"The light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long - and you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy. Look at you: you're the Prodigal Son; you're quite a prize!" -Tyrell, from Blade Runner
Look up at the night sky. On a clear, dark night with normal vision, you can literally see…
July 21, 2010
He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot. -Douglas Adams
When I started writing about science online in January of 2008, I put the word out that I would accept questions from my readers. After all, I knew that there was a lot of…
July 18, 2010
"Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all." -Abraham Lincoln
Last weekend, I presented you with two remarkable covers, one from music and one from astronomy. This week, I'm going to show you the reverse of that; going back to the forgotten originals.…
July 16, 2010
"If you only look at a person through one lens, or only believe what you're told, you can often miss the truth that is staring you in the face." -Kevin Spacey
One of the most powerful ideas from Einstein's theory of Gravity -- General Relativity -- is that any massive object in the Universe not…
July 14, 2010
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." -Galileo Galilei
Geez, Ethan, why don't you take on a bigger question?
This question of "fundamental things" has a special meaning to scientists and natural…
July 12, 2010
Yo ho! It's hot, the sun is not a place where we could live.
But here on earth there'd be no life without the light it gives.
We need its light. We need its heat. We need its energy.
Without the sun without a doubt there'd be no you and me. -They Might Be Giants
Ahh, the Sun. Beautiful and blinding…
July 10, 2010
"We want our sound to go into the soul of the audience, and see if it can awaken some little thing in their minds... 'Cause there are so many sleeping people."
-Jimi Hendrix
One of the greatest challenges in music is to take a great original song and cover it, adding your own twist or flavor, and…
July 9, 2010
"I admitted, that the world had existed millions of years. I am astonished at the ignorance of the masses on these subjects. Hugh Miller has it right when he says that 'the battle of evidences must now be fought on the field of the natural sciences.'"
-James A. Garfield, future U.S. President, in…
July 7, 2010
"Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and…
July 6, 2010
"To exist in this vast universe for a speck of time is the great gift of life. Our tiny sliver of time is our gift of life. It is our only life. The universe will go on, indifferent to our brief existence, but while we are here we touch not just part of that vastness, but also the lives around us…
July 2, 2010
"Any red-blooded, flag-fearing American would love the M-320. Celebrate the independence of your nation by blowing up a small part of it." -The Simpsons
There are many things that your life has to offer as far as fun goes, and it's different for each person. For me, music is a huge part of it. Here…
July 1, 2010
"Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future." -Neils Bohr
As many of you know, the Big Bang is one of the most powerful scientific theories we have.
It's also one of the most unsettling. The idea that our entire Universe -- filled with practically a trillion galaxies -- is…
June 30, 2010
"I have given them the last rites, now you do what you will. You are stronger than us, but soon I think they be stronger than you." -Dawn of the Dead
Here at Starts With a Bang, one of the things I'm passionate about is putting forth all sorts of different pieces of evidence for dark matter, and…
June 28, 2010
The task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what no body yet has thought about that which everyone sees. -Arthur Schopenhauer
Most of you who've been reading Starts With A Bang for a while have seen this picture come up many, many times.
Why do I keep putting it up, and…
June 27, 2010
"Voyagers discover that the world can never be larger than the person that is in the world; but it is impossible to foresee this, it is impossible to be warned."
-James A. Baldwin
Sometimes, good things happen. And sometimes, you need to get out there, however down you're feeling, and make them…
June 24, 2010
"The Universe is made mostly of dark matter and dark energy, and we don't know what either of them is." -Saul Perlmutter
When I was starting out as a graduate student, one of the most exciting (and daunting) tasks facing me was to piece together a scientifically accurate and useful picture of the…
June 21, 2010
A person without a shadow should keep out of the sun, that is the only safe and rational plan. -Adelbert von Chamisso
A few years ago, there was a rumor going around that the Earth's axis had shifted, and that we were no longer inclined to the Sun at 23.5°.
Well, guess what? Today, June 21st, like…
June 20, 2010
Four years of football are calculated to breed in the average man more of the ingredients of success in life than almost any academic course he takes.
-Knute Rockne
Of course, academics are (mostly) on summer vacation right now, so the worst you're likely to run into is getting stuck behind a…
June 18, 2010
"No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit." -Helen Keller
If you've been paying attention, you heard that the Kepler mission, earlier this week, announced the discovery of 706 candidate planets orbiting stars…
June 17, 2010
"We are all captives of the pictures in our head -- our belief that the world we have experienced is the world that really exists." -Walter Lippmann
For a long time, humans have wondered about life on other worlds, and about worlds around other stars. Until the 1990s, this was mostly speculation…
June 16, 2010
"If anyone, then, asks me the meaning of our flag, I say to him -- it means just what Concord and Lexington meant; what Bunker Hill meant; which was, in short, the rising up of a valiant young people against an old tyranny to establish the most momentous doctrine that the world had ever known --…
June 13, 2010
"All that I desire to point out is the general principle that life imitates art far more than art imitates life." -Oscar Wilde
It isn't only the wonders of the Universe themselves that impress me. Oftentimes, just as spectacular are the technological achievements that have brought those wonders to…
June 12, 2010
"If we lived on a planet where nothing ever changed, there would be little to do. There would be nothing to figure out. There would be no impetus for science. And if we lived in an unpredictable world, where things changed in random or very complex ways, we would not be able to figure things out.…
June 10, 2010
"A good heart is the Sun and the Moon; or, rather, the Sun and not the Moon, for it shines bright and never changes." -William Shakespeare
Did I ever tell you how lucky you are?
Lucky, indeed, to have the Sun for a star?
Our Sun -- the ultimate source of all the light, heat, energy, and life on…
June 7, 2010
"We can continue to try and clean up the gutters all over the world and spend all of our resources looking at just the dirty spots and trying to make them clean. Or we can lift our eyes up and look into the skies and move forward in an evolutionary way." -Buzz Aldrin
Sometimes, you go away for one…
June 3, 2010
"Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it enkindles the great." -Comte DeBussy-Rabutin
As many of you know, I'm not around for the rest of the week/weekend, as I'm off competing in the USA Beard & Mustache Championships!
But I wouldn't feel right without leaving…
June 3, 2010
"It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice -- there are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia." -Frank Zappa
There are many websites around telling you that the world is going to end on the winter solstice -- December 21st -- in the year 2012. And…
June 2, 2010
"Vision is not enough, it must be combined with venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps, we must step up the stairs." -Vaclav Havel
It's arguable that vision is the most important tool that an astronomer can have. This was particularly important back before the invention of the telescope,…
May 30, 2010
"Shave off your beard and wear a dress. You would be a great female impersonator." -Simon Cowell
No, this post has nothing to do with Simon Cowell, but like American Idol, I do have a song for you. Have a listen to Almost Cut My Hair by Crosby, Stills & Nash, while you enjoy the read. (And…
