August 27, 2007 – 11:42 am
I’m not sure whether this is an elaborate publicity stunt for the Simpsons movie (donut reference) or just a very interesting scientific discovery, but…
WASHINGTON — Astronomers have stumbled upon a tremendous hole in the universe. That’s got them scratching their heads about what’s just not there. The cosmic blank spot has no stray stars, no galaxies, no sucking black holes, not even mysterious dark matter. It is 1 billion light years across of nothing. That’s an expanse of nearly 6 billion trillion miles of emptiness, a University of Minnesota team announced Thursday.
Astronomers have known for many years that there are patches in the universe where nobody’s home. In fact, one such place is practically a neighbor, a mere 2 million light years away. But what the Minnesota team discovered, using two different types of astronomical observations, is a void that’s far bigger than scientists ever imagined.
“This is 1,000 times the volume of what we sort of expected to see in terms of a typical void,” said Minnesota astronomy professor Lawrence Rudnick, author of the paper that will be published in Astrophysical Journal. “It’s not clear that we have the right word yet … This is too much of a surprise.”
April 21, 2007 – 12:34 am
The conservation of momentum, as explained with the aid of the Spider-man comic book story involving the death of Gwen Stacy.
Yes, it’s very nerdy - to get that comment out of the way right off the bat…
March 27, 2006 – 10:19 am
Too bad I didn’t read this before the kids’ science fair….
While I love stuff like this, it always gets me into a bit of a mental quandary, which I have yet to satisfactorily resolve.
On the one hand, I have a great interest and appreciation for all things “astronomical”. This is in part due to one of my most respected mentors, who not only taught me to love learning, but also to see a glimpse of God in the wonders of creation. It’s also rooted in my understanding that, as in other areas of science, sometimes the most beneficial discoveries to mankind are uncovered in the process of looking for something else entirely.
The conflict for me is that I also know that this particular brand of science is very expensive, and I can’t ignore the many areas of need in our society as well as the larger world, which would seem to be a better candidate for such resources.
Perhaps you would expect the socialist in me to suggest that taxes could simply be raised to pay for both, and/or make cuts in other areas where we are overspending. That’s certainly one idea, but not a very likely one.
I guess the best case scenario would be Roddenberry’s vision of the Star Trek future, in which an encounter with an extraterrestrial species puts the whole planet on a fast track to unity (and thus putting aside petty international differences), spurred on by a dramatically shifted world view.
Oh well, I didn’t see any signs of pointy-eared distant neighbors in last night’s footage, but here’s hoping…
This is a good season to experience it. (Summary and details).
the president contradicts himself again.
From a story regarding stem cell research and the threat of a veto from the president:
“I’ve made it very clear… the use of federal money, taxpayers’ money, to promote science which destroys life in order to save life, I’m against that,” he told reporters.
Foreign policy that has the same stated purpose (whether or not it’s true), however, is apparently OK.
But seriously….
One of the highlights was listening in on a small conversation last night, with Larry Wall (creator of Perl), Guido van Rossum (creator of Python) and Alexander Stepanov (creator of the C++ STL) all around the same table. Some notable quotes:
Larry Wall (when asked if he could do it all over again, what would he do differently):
“Usually the only answers to that question are ‘nothing’ and ‘everything’. I have always said ‘nothing’, but over the last year I’ve changed my answer.”
Alexander Stepanov commented (I didn’t write down the exact quote) that one of the worst things that has happened to software development in the last decade or so is commercialization. Computer “scientists” in college now are always looking to make the next big .com start-up or killer app that will make them rich. In this kind of environment, Stepanov says, scientific progress and imagination is almost completely stifled.
January 10, 2005 – 9:13 am
If it were possible to travel through time, but only in one direction, would you choose forward or backward?
