Banner
There Is No Such Thing as a "Nuclear Scientist". There Are Only Physicists

Let’s bury the dangerous, lazy, and politically convenient idea that there exists a distinct...

The Thirty Meter Telescope May Be Cancelled Not by Ordinary People's Protest, but by Wealthy People's Whim

Astronomy, it seems, finds itself at the mercy of political caprice and economic machinations yet...

NASA Predicts Asteroid 2024 YR4 Might Hit The Moon.

According to observations made by NASA using the James Webb Space Telescope, there is a three point...

Basically No chance 2024 YR4 will hit Earth.

Recent observations have virtually eliminated any concern about an impact from asteroid 2024 YR4...

User picture.
picture for Hank Campbellpicture for Fred Phillipspicture for Robert H Olleypicture for Chidambaram Rameshpicture for Patrick Lockerbypicture for Jerry Decker
Hontas FarmerRSS Feed of this column.

My research focuses on astrophysics from massive star formation to astroparticle physics. Born and raised in Chicagoland I have lived in Bellwood, IL since 1984 and attended public schools here... Read More »

Blogroll

Gravitational waves and particle physics experiments being mixed is  something  I  have theorized  about for  a couple of years (1).     Now a new paper by  Suvrat  Rao,  Marcus  Brüggen, and  Jochen  Liske has  taken  this to  another  level (2).   They have worked out and demonstrated in detail how a circular particle accelerator such as the LHC could be used to observe gravitational waves in the mHz range.  This differs from experiments such as LIGO and LISA in the physical mechanism by which the gravitational waves would be detected.  

Arecibo while no longer unique in design since China built a similar and larger telescope was special. What should replace it is something that will exceed what it is able to do. There is already a well formed plan for such a radio telescope using a properly chosen lunar crater. Taking an existing landform and using it for the dish reduces the work that needs to be done. Locating this hypothetical observatory on the Moon’s far side would shield it from most all man made radio noise. Combining data from a Moon based radio telescope with that from Earth based radio telescopes could result in data of a detail that we may not match for another century. This is doable with current technology.

There is only one valid, not breathtakingly hypocritical opinion anyone who has claimed to believe in science can have on this vaccine.  Give it to me fast and strong.. give me that vaccine ASAP.

Democrats favor LGBT people in the culture war but seem to favor only certain kinds of science, not including space exploration or high energy physics.   Two areas where fundamental physics expertise is of value. Too often science priorities are viewed as another front in the culture war.  Joe Biden is likely above that, but the rest of his party has historically had a habit of cutting funding to major science projects.  First let me present evidence for this fact both past and current, then I will reflect.

If there is some government conspiracy to hide the existence of extra-terrestrial life then the current president would be the man to declassify all of it.  So, in the unlikely hope the president sees this I ask, in all seriousness, with some humor thrown in… how about it?   What can anyone do to you that hasn’t already been done? The thing about loosing a presidential election would be after it… you can’t really ever loose again.  So, if in the end, once all the court cases are over, and the recounts, and the shenanigans you loose why not draw a bright line under it?

Building a green energy infrastructure will take energy.  That means we need to use the energy sources we have, fossil fuels, to build out the infrastructure we want.  Solar, wind, and in any realistic scenario nuclear.

Making windmills that means burning fossil fuels until we have a green infrastructure which it self will need to be built out using fossil fuels.