Boy, you are just full of surprises. Your unpredictable weather: cold, cold, dreary, yucky, winter with foggy skies. Colorado is not nearly as cold as you, unless you are at high altitudes, like in the mountains. And what now, an earthquake? WTF, Illinois?
You never cease to amaze me. I love you, Illinois, but why do you do me like this? Why do you teaseee? Why, oh why, do you treat this Colorado boy so? After all I went through, after all I’ve been through, leaving everything in Colorado….. for you, for this?!
I was sleeping in my jammies at 4:37am when I was awakened by sounds of an angry poltergeist. The building started to creak and groan, the window glass rattled with great fervor, liquor bottles began to clink together jovially, my bed began to shake uncontrollably.
I lay in bed, still, motionless. Thoughts of Armageddon raced through my head. And, then, after about 10 seconds, it all stopped.
Illinois, corn queen, honey, what is your deal?
Why so moody? if our relationship is to work, you are going to have to be a hell of a lot more stable and a whole lot less cranky. Where is your shining sun, your clear dark skies? your warm, loving embrace? You and me, we can be great together, baby….we can be good. We can make this work. I know we can. I just ask this one thing: just stop being such a goddamn bee-yotch all the goddamn time, okay?
I’ve spent last weekend contaminating my trusty MacBook Pro with TurboTax and IRS webpages and now, I’ve sent the results of our hard work (my Mac and me, I tend to anthropomorphisize devices I’m a attached to) off to the government.
Paying taxes hurts, especially when you have to navigate the labryinth of tax laws, deductions and loopholes (Of course, I would never, ever use a loophole, not me nosirree. In fact, just what IS a loophole, a torus-shaped distortion in spacetime? See? I don’t even know what one is.)
I usually follow this once-a-year ritual with some kind of fun trip or vacation, but this year is a no-can-do. I’m busy writing software for the Dark Energy Survey and earning money for next year’s tax return. That’s ok because not many people can claim to have a job they enjoy as much as going on vacation.
As I am very fond of saying, ‘Things could ALWAYS be worse.’
It occurred to me as I mailed my return that this ritual is like the expansion of the universe, inexorable, inevitable, and not without its share of pain.
Pain for whom is a question I’ll leave open to people who anthropomorphisize things, but it always seemed like the expansion of the universe should hurt.
Kind of like using anthropomorphisize in a sentence.
Remember LiteBrite, a toy introduced in 1967 by Hasbro?
Here is the Supernova explosion process explained by SlackerAstronomy using LiteBrite as a learning tool:
“I thought that I had a solid grasp of discourse analysis, I really did. I’ve never received a mark lower than an A+ on any of the discourse analyses that I’ve written over the years, however. Doing a presentation on the methodology and theory behind it was absolute torture. I had a mental breakdown, which triggered a mental regression that led me to play Litebrite, cry and admit that I know nothing about critical linguistics.” –photocredit and blurb credit: the Frankfurt School
I am sure most of you have heard of the Google Earth program’s Google Sky component. Well, this Spring, Microsoft will also come out with a similar Windows-only software called WorldWide Telescope.
Me, I am strictly a Mac-man so I probably won’t even personally bother using this, but the prospect of another mass-produced software like Google Sky bringing astronomy further into the hearts and homes of people at large brings me such joy that I will momentarily overlook the fact that this software is Microsoft to write this blog post. I am also happy to see that Newsweek did an article on it.
I am holding this Newsweek article comparing the two softwares, by Newsweek Technologist Columnist, Steven Levy, in my hands right now. The article is called “From Search Wars to Star Wars” (March 31, 2008). Here are some highlights:
• Google Sky has 200 million viewable galaxies, while WorldWide Telescope will come with 1.2 million galaxies with a later addition of some 2 billion more.
• Unlike GoogleSky (which came from a little side project), WorldWide Telescope (WWT) sprouted up from Microsoft’s high-end research division, where scientists like Jim Gray have been organizing satellite imagery to lend to this software for years (in fact, the project is dedicated to Gray, who disappeared on his sailboat last year).
• WWT has an attractive interface that allows users to make their own “guided tours” of space. You can do flyby footage, and put it to music. yes, baby….”Come Fly with Me….”
• According to Newsweek, the two companies, Google and Microsoft, are not trying to go head to head at competing for the accolades of best astronomy software because neither has plans to monetize its space software programs. Lior Ron, Google Sky’s product manager says this: “If there’s one thing that’s universal it’s sky and space.” And, amen, I say.
There was a hole, in the galaxy
The blackest hole
That you ever did see.
In the middle of the hole was a singularity
And the Spiral arms swirled all around,
all around. And the Spiral arms swirled all around.
And ’round this hole, was a ball of stars
The central core of the galaxy.
Oh, the stars in the core, round the hole in the middle,
with a singularity, and the spiral arms swirled…
And from this core, spread a disc of dust.
The gas and dust of the galaxy.
Oh, a disc made of dust, round the stars in the core
with a hole in the middle, with a singularity….
And through this disk wound spiral arms
Glowing bright in the galaxy.
Oh bright spiral arms, through a disc made of dust,
round the stars in the core…
And in one arm, there was a sun
Burning bright in the galaxy.
Oh a sun in an arm through a disc made of dust
round the stars in the core…
And round this sun there was a planet.
The pretties planet that you ever did see.
Oh a planet ’round a sun, and the sun in an arm,
through a disc made of dust round the stars in the core…
And on this planet was you and me,
Love and life in the galaxy.
Oh the people on the planet, and the planet ’round the sun
and the sun in an arm, through a disc made of dust,
Round the stars in the core, with a hole in the middle
with a singularity, and the spiral arms swirled all around,
all around. And the spiral arms swirled all around.
Ben Stein is the star of a new documentary called “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.”
Remember, Ben Stein from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” the boring high school teacher who spoke in a toad-like monotone during classroom roll call…..Bueller? Byooolerr? The documentary is about how intelligent design scientists are being silenced and shamed, how education in America is steered by the majority of scientists who have pro-evolutionary agendas, limiting freedom of speech in schools.
Sounds like propaganda to me. Propaganda anyone? Anyone?
Ben Stein, in an interview with the NY Times, said he believes the theory of evolution leads to racism and ultimately genocide.
If it were up to him, he told the Times, the film would be called ‘From Darwin to Hitler.’ (Darwin into Hitler–now that’s evolution!)
Stein also said in the interview that he accepted the producers’ invitation to participate in the film not because he personally disagrees with evolutionary theory, he admits there’s “a very high likelihood” that Darwin was on to something, he just does not accept that evolution alone can explain life on earth. “Big Science in this area of biology has lost its way,” says Stein. “Scientists are supposed to be allowed to follow the evidence wherever it may lead, no matter what the implications are. Freedom of inquiry has been greatly compromised, and this is not only anti-American, it’s anti-science. It’s anti-the whole concept of learning.”
Ben Stein has forgotten that freedom of inquiry involves critical thinking. Proponents of Intelligent Design DO NOT provide concrete evidence for what they claim. When their papers get criticized and turned down during peer-review for presenting ideas without supporting evidence, they cry out that they have been unfairly persecuted for their beliefs. To all ID proponents: this wouldn’t happen if you actually had EVIDENCE. Without evidence, beliefs are simply just that–beliefs, nothing more, nothing less, in absolutely no credible position for consideration.
The National Center for Science Education will post a full response to the Ben Stein movie Expelled on April 15 on the site: www.expelledexposed.com.
Ben Stein, I like the name of your movie film; it’s so aptly named, it actually fails to be ironic.
The secret to making money on the web isn’t all that secret. You need to have something to say that people wanna hear, or see, or read or whatever.
Now don’t get me wrong, I make no claims that my content is compelling or in any other way worth your time. I just spout stuff that’s taking up valuable synapse space in my brain, primarily just to get it the hell out of there.
Even so, it turns out I make ok money each month just by putting the thoughts in my head in web form.
People come, they read, watch or otherwise amuse themselves (I’m not about to speculate on that part), and somehow, money makes it into my PayPal account each month. I just checked the balance, something I don’t do very often, and found over $1,500 in there.
Imagine that. From my synapses to my bank account. Money, it turns out, doesn’t grow on trees, you just have to think and out it comes. There’s probably a close correlation to the quality of synapses versus dollars earned, but I’m too busy thinking to do the math.
In fact, now that I think of it, I make ALL of my money by thinking. People pay me money to sit around all day and think. Not a bad way to live when you think about it (heh, heh. How many times can I write think in a paragraph? Thinkthinkthinkthink….thought! There, that wasn’t so bad, but it did hurt a little).
Why am I telling you this? I just received an offer to become a YouTube partner. I guess because I have over 2,000 subscribers to my channel, one that hasn’t seen me log in since October. The irony here is they all think I’m dead (these are comments from my channel):
As a close friend of Tony’s i have to inform you that Tony is currently is in hospital suffering from cancer
No, sorry. And for the record, I have no idea who that guy is.
The man is not dead you dopes! He just hasn’t logged on to youtube in 4 months
Same thing.
Guys, stop making fucking retarded assumptions, hes not dead and hes not suffering from cancer you liar, hes still blogging on astronomybuff
Funny, I say that all the time to my colleagues. Weird.
Yeah baby. AstronomyBuff.com. Welcome space fans, what took you sooooo long?
So, more riches are on the way. What do I have to do to get it? From YouTube:
All you need to do is create compelling video content.
The idea of an expanding and accelerating universe is a very hard one to fully visualize. We try anyway because that’s how humans make sense of ideas; visualizing is our way of trying to understand.
Nothing is more satisfying than thinking we understand our place in the universe. We don’t of course. At least not yet, but we’re getting closer. Walking our path towards understanding, especially when it comes to cosmology, is fraught with peril. We run the risk of getting too simplistic in our visualizations.
Below is a list of mistakes we make when thinking about the big bang. It comes from questions and comments I regularly receive after someone watches the Hubble Deep Field video.
The Big Bang was an explosion. This is a very common idea, and it’s understandable because we talk of an expanding universe, and we commonly run the universe ‘backward’ in time to make sense of it at various stages in its history. Cosmologists also talk of a time when the universe was smaller than the head of a pin, with all matter and everything the universe is to become all contained in a singularity. The Big Bang is not an explosion, it is an inflation of space-time that is driven by the repulsive effect of dark energy (or vacuum energy - which may BE dark energy, but I digress). The best one can do with the explosion analogy is to think of the explosion as little explosions happening everywhere, all at once, throughout spacetime. AND, that it’s still going on.
The universe is expanding INTO something. Almost immediately after you visualize that the universe is expanding, it’s very natural to ask, “What’s it expanding into?” As we’ve already established, all of spacetime is expanding, everywhere is getting bigger all the time. Note the word ‘everywhere’. Our backyard is getting bigger every minute, there is nothing outside the fence, at least that has ANYTHING WHATSOEVER to do with us. IF there is something outside of our expanding universe, we have no hope of ever measuring it or in any other manner interact with that ‘region’; the laws which govern our existence make it a worthless question.
If the universe is expanding, so is everything in it. Again, it is SPACETIME that is expanding, not stars, planets, moons, galaxies, you, me (except for my waistline, but that’s not the universe’s fault), the living room, indivdual atoms, etc. The expansion affects the fabric of spacetime, anything bound by gravity or the other fundamental forces of nature do NOT follow this expansion. So you can forget about marketing that diet that puts people in a non-expanding bubble of spacetime which prevents further expansion.
When thinking about our bubble of spacetime we call the universe, you need to remember that we have no hope of getting any information from anywhere outside of it, that is, if there is one. So while you may be delirious with joy over the idea of extra dimensions, spacetime warps and other really cool sci-fi ideas, unless the laws of physics changes radically (or you become a scientologist), those ideas will always remain science fiction.
Besides, we have our hands full understanding the universe we can interact with, and the bitch of it is, over 95% of THAT won’t have anything to do with us.
Since I posted a post about Van Gogh a few posts down, I feel this quote is especially apt to put up here. Ha, what a great quote!!! I can totally relate to this.
“Sometimes I have a terrible need of, shall I say the word, religion. Then I go out at night and paint the stars.”
The below poem by Walt Whitman kind of makes me chuckle a bit. Much of science can seem to be dry if presented solely in the form of numbers and charts and diagrams. To a poet, it may seem kind of dry and without romance. But, really, it is all romantic. All of it. Enjoying the beauty is quite simple; the numbers are the hard parts. It takes a driving passion and curiosity to want to dig, do the work, and figure out the details behind the natural beauty of the universe. When I Heard The Learn’d Astronomer by Walt Whitman.
When I heard the learn’d astronomer; When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them; When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
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The idea of an expanding and accelerating universe is a very hard one to fully visualize. We try anyway because that’s how humans make sense of ideas; visualizing is our way of trying to understand.
