Random Stuff
esiegel | October 29, 2017What better way to say farewell than with a slew of costume pictures from this year's (coming) Halloween?
Happy Halloween 2017!
From Ethan Siegel and Starts With A Bang.
Keep looking to the Universe.
And we'll have a lifetime of wonderful things to still explore.
Goodbye, Scienceblogs, it's been an incredible almost-decade. Hope to see you all in all our other endeavors!
esiegel | October 24, 2017"I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there." -Richard Feynman
Scientists have long had a reputation for being uptight, serious, and even killjoy personalities. But 50+ years ago, Richard Feynman was forcing everyone who felt that way to challenge their assumptions. With his brash attitude and fun-seeking personality, Feynman seemingly was most at home when he was at his most outrageous.
Feynman at the Myths and Legends Party dressed as “God.” His wife, Gweneth, is dressed as Medusa, with a rock as her date. Image credit: from Christopher Sykes, No…
esiegel | July 23, 2017"I have never gone out of fashion. And do you know why? Because I never sought it. When you don't seek it, it's always with you." -Bonnie Tyler
Well folks, it's summer, and that means a lot of things for a lot of people, including for me! So, some fun announcements:
I have an official pre-release poster! Image credit: Quarto Publishing.
My new book, Treknology, is coming out soon and I'm big into preparing for that right now! The design is finalized, I should be getting my first preview copy this coming week, and I've just gotten my tickets to attend the official Star Trek convention in…
esiegel | June 13, 2017"Success isn't a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire." -Arnold Glascow
When someone makes a shot, it’s a little instinctive to want to give them the ball again to see if they’ll make another. If they make three or four in a row, you’ll really want to ride that ‘hot hand’ as far as it will go. And if your teammate has made six, seven, or eight shots in a row, you know you’re beginning to witness something very special. There’s nothing like getting hot in quite that way.
When you hear that someone made a basket, you're already biasing your probabilities of success,…
esiegel | April 13, 2017"I do have a blurred memory of sitting on the stairs and trying over and over again to tie one of my shoelaces, but that is all that comes back to me of school itself." -Roald Dahl
Most of us learn to tie our shoes when we’re very young, go through life tying it through that very same method, and never think about it again. Yet for some of us, routinely untied shoelaces are a part of our daily lives, while for others, our shoes rarely come undone, even without double-knotting them. The reason for this is twofold: one is the way we wear our shoes, but the other is the way we tie them.
The…
esiegel | December 8, 2016"It is worthy of notice that in Table VI the brighter variables have the longer periods. It is also noticeable that those having the longest periods appear to be as regular in their variations as those which pass through their changes in a day or two." -Henrietta Leavitt
The past year has held a slew of victories and defeats, positives and negatives and everything in between for us all. Don’t lament the bad; instead, set yourself up to enter 2017 with something wonderful in hand: an appreciation of the wonder of the natural Universe.
Incredible Stories from Space, and the author with…
esiegel | November 27, 2016“A thing may be of deeper impossibility than another, in the sense that you can be more deeply underwater--but whether you are five feet or five fathoms from the surface you are still all wet.” -Brian McGreevy
With everything going on in the world, it's always a wonderful reminder that here at Starts With A Bang! we're eternally focused on the cosmic story of what we know and how we know it. Regardless of what direction you want to push society, increasing our knowledge and understanding ought to be one thing we all agree on. This past week, here's a look back at what we've covered:
What's…
esiegel | November 24, 2016"If a fellow isn't thankful for what he's got, he isn't likely to be thankful for what he's going to get." -Frank A. Clark
There’s a lot to be thankful for, and some of those things are truly universal. The world we share, the Sun we orbit, the galaxy we reside in and the Universe itself plus the laws that govern it are cosmic stories we all share. And if you think about it really hard, you’ll realize that there are a whole slew of cosmic steps that needed to happen that are worth giving thanks to.
An infrared view from ESA’s Herschel observatory of a new star-forming region. Image credit:…
esiegel | December 13, 2015“The time will come when diligent research over long periods will bring to light things which now lie hidden. A single lifetime, even though entirely devoted to the sky, would not be enough for the investigation of so vast a subject... And so this knowledge will be unfolded only through long successive ages. There will come a time when our descendants will be amazed that we did not know things that are so plain to them... Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come, when memory of us will have been effaced.” -Seneca
If you love what's out there in the Universe -- the science, the…
esiegel | November 29, 2015"No one regards what is before his feet; we all gaze at the stars." -Quintus Ennius
For the space, science or astronomy enthusiast, there's nothing like looking up at the Universe with your own eyes and discovering it. But during the day, while you're seated at your desk, office or computer, many of us crave connecting with the Universe then, even if briefly, even if only for a moment. And there are many, many wall calendar options out there for you to choose from.
Image credit: The Scientific American Space: Views From The Hubble Space Telescope 2016 calendar.
But despite the efforts of…
esiegel | November 26, 2015“We live in an atmosphere of shame. We are ashamed of everything that is real about us; ashamed of ourselves, of our relatives, of our incomes, of our accents, of our opinions, of our experience, just as we are ashamed of our naked skins.” –George Bernard Shaw
On this Thanksgiving day, we're supposed to express gratitude for all that we have in this world: for the friendships, families, and the bounty of good things that have come our way. We also give thanks for all the serendipity we've been lucky enough to encounter, including what the natural world gives us for free.
Image credit: public…
esiegel | November 15, 2015"Every great work makes the human face more admirable and richer, and that is its whole secret." -Albert Camus
It's well known that by aligning and averaging a wide variety of human faces together, an eerie "average" human face can be arrived at. But we see faces in things all the time, from natural scenes like terrain to artificial ones like cars, coffeemakers and combination locks.
Images credit: Instagram, via the hashtag #FacesInThings, retrieved from Robby Kraft at http://robbykraft.com/sfpc/index.php?controller=post&action=view&id_pos….
For the first time, someone averaged…
esiegel | November 1, 2015“I have signs in my kitchen to remind me not to eat breakfast and that my job is always. Most cops work only at night or at day. I am a lucky cop because I work both. Tomorrow we do it all again, because my job is not day shift or night shift. It’s always shift.” -Axe Cop
One day, at the scene of the fire, the cop found the perfect axe. That was the day he became AXE COP! Axe Cop began as a comic, expanded into an "Ask Axe Cop" series...
Image credit: Ethan & Malachai Nicolle, Ask Axe Cop #54.
...and most prominently, became a TV show on Fox, having just finished its second season. One…
esiegel | October 25, 2015“It’s said that All Hallows’ Eve is one of the nights when the veil between the worlds is thin — and whether you believe in such things or not, those roaming spirits probably believe in you, or at least acknowledge your existence, considering that it used to be their own.” -Erin Morgenstern
Alas, Halloween comes but once a year, giving all of us the opportunity to express ourselves in an unusual fashion. You're free to dress up, decorate, or otherwise meddle in the fictional, occult or fearsome however you desire. Have a listen to Laura Marling's bone-rattling song,
Night Terror,
while you…
esiegel | October 18, 2015“Life is life’s greatest gift. Guard the life of another creature as you would your own because it is your own. On life’s scale of values, the smallest is no less precious to the creature who owns it than the largest.” -Lloyd Biggle, Jr.
And yet it's certainly something to consider how little attention we pay to the place which houses the vast majority of Earth's life: the oceans. Covering the majority of the planet's surface and containing the majority of our planet's biomass, the undersea realm is often forgotten in our day-to-day lives. Have a listen to Bill Evans as his trio plays their…
esiegel | October 11, 2015“I can look in their eyes and see it. That’s the best feeling I can have. … I know I didn’t affect their lives just today, but it carries on for years and years to come.” -Warrick Dunn
When most people think about the NFL, they think of a sport they either enjoy watching or couldn't care less about. But when they think of the players, words that come to mind are violent, thug and criminal, which doesn't paint a flattering picture. Maybe you'll get a song running through your head when you think of it, like Uncle Tupelo's
Criminals.
You may have heard of any number of crimes committed by its…
esiegel | September 27, 2015“Some people become vandals because they want to make the world a better looking place.” -Banksy
Not everyone who's a street artist engages in vandalism, nor are all acts of vandalism negative or unwanted in any way. Consider all the different ways one can contribute to the vibrancy of a city as you listen to The Mammals' song,
City Never Sleeps,
and while you consider the "yarn bombings" of the yarnstorming group known as the Souter Stormers in Scotland.
Image credit: Penelope Textiles Limited.
Earlier this month, they yarn-bombed 46 landmarks in Selkirk, Scotland, but what you might not…
esiegel | September 20, 2015“It is worthwhile, too, to warn the teacher that undue severity in correcting faults is liable at times to discourage a pupil’s mind from effort.” -Quintilian
We live in a society where we often draw this dichotomy between "our side," which is always right, and "their side," which is against us and, of course, always wrong. Yet we have more in common than you might think, and that's something we can find so long as -- as Tower of Power sings -- we're
Willing To Learn.
Yet that requires we approach problems with not only an open mind, but people with an open heart.
Image credit: screenshot…
esiegel | September 6, 2015“The impact of an attacking tiger can be compared to that of a piano falling on you from a second story window. But unlike the piano, the tiger is designed to do this, and the impact is only the beginning.” -John Vaillant
I can't fault you if you've given up entirely on the perfume/cologne industry. Despite was might be marketed as a way to induce an "obsession" among your love interest, reality often falls flat. Have a listen to Suede sing about the idea in their song,
Obsessions,
while you consider that an interesting behavior that was quite unintended has been seen.
Image credit:…
esiegel | August 30, 2015“When he came home, I could see a change. He was quieter and he was a man and a hero to me. I watched him and listened to him. I’d never had an opportunity to do a superhero, and when that came, [that voice] just came right out of me and I sounded like Optimus.” -Peter Cullen, on his brother
If you were a kid in the mid-to-late 1980s, you couldn't have missed the phenomenon of Transformers, and if you were a kid again in the late 2000s/early 2010s, you had another chance to become enamored of these multi-formed giant robots. Have a listen to Tracy Chapman’s reflective and provocative song,…