quasars

Once again, there are three new pieces online on our website, each wonderful in its own way. But Haiku just didn’t seem to fit this batch. So, with apologies to the scientists, here are three limericks on the newest Institute research. As before, follow the links to get to our website. (Incidentally, there is some precedent for limerick writing at the Weizmann Institute. The late Prof. Amikam Aharoni, who also wrote some serious stuff on ferromagnetism, was known for his limericks.)   The Quasar There once was a baby black hole That went for a short little stroll It zigged and it zagged…

What did the universe look like 11 billion years ago? Something like this: This image is part of the largest-ever 3-D map of the distant universe, which was released yesterday by scientists from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III) at the April meeting of the American Physical Society. Just a slice of the entire map, the image shows the distribution of intergalactic hydrogen gas: red areas have more gas, blue areas have less. Scientists usually map the universe by looking at galaxies. But this study, which was led by Brookhaven cosmologist Anže Slosar, observed how light from…