The Universe was opaque until 380.000 years after the Big Bang.
Filling out the entire electromagnetic spectrum, in order of low-energy and low-frequency to high-energy and high-frequency, we have: radio waves, microwaves, infrared, ROYGBIV, ultraviolet, X-rays, and gamma rays.
We are seeing these nearby stars, not as they are at the present moment, but as they were 4 years ago.
German physicist Heinrich Hertz had shown that the only real difference among the various kinds of light is the frequency of the waves in each band.
According to Christian teachings of the day, God controlled the heavens, rendering them unknowable to our feeble mortal minds. When Newton breached this philosophical barrier by rendering all motion comprehensible and predictable, some theologians criticized him for leaving nothing for the Creator to do.
By convention, moons are named for Greek personalities in the life of the Greek counterpart to the Roman god after whom the planet itself was named.
The good thing about the laws of physics is that they require no law enforcement agencies to maintain them.
The universe is knowable...
Earth’s brightness is less than one-billionth that of the Sun, and our planet’s proximity to the Sun would make it extremely hard for anybody to see Earth directly with a visible light telescope.
The universe is knowable and what one need not apeal to mystical, magical forces to account for things.
Every cup that passes through a single person and eventually rejoins the world’s water supply holds enough molecules to mix 1,500 of them into every other cup of water in the world. No way around it: some of the water you just drank passed through the kidneys of Socrates, Genghis Khan, and Joan of Arc.
One substantial hunk of junk led to the formation of the Moon. The unexpected scarcity of iron and other higher-mass elements in the Moon, derived from lunar samples returned by Apollo astronauts, indicates that the Moon most likely burst forth from Earth’s iron-poor crust and mantle after a glancing collision with a wayward Mars-sized protoplanet.
To other scientists, the scientist who corrects a colleague’s error, or cites good reasons for seriously doubting his or her conclusions, performs a noble deed, like a Zen master who boxes the ears of a novice straying from the meditative path, although scientists correct one another more as equals than as master and student.
And what happens when you stop innovating? Everyone else catches up, your jobs go overseas, and then you cry foul: Ooohh, they’re paying them less over there, and the playing field is not level. Well, stop whining and start innovating.
Out of ninety-four naturally occurring elements, hydrogen lays claim to more than two-thirds of all atoms in the human body, and more than ninety percent of all atoms in the cosmos, on all scales, right on down to the solar system.
When I pore over the data that establish the mysterious prescence of dark matter and dark energy throughout the universe, sometimes I forget that every day- every twenty a fourth out rotation on Earth- people get killed in the name of someone else’s conception of God, and that some people who do not kill in the name of God, kill in the name of needs or wants of political dogma.
Taken together, you get the best indication that water absorbs microwave frequencies.
Your body has to come up with about 100 watts of energy to keep yourself warm.
Intelligence and longevity do not seem to be correlated.
Dark matter is dark; that means it does not interact with photons.