Tag Archive for astrophysics

Planck Mission Updates the Age of the Universe and What it Contains

marzo 21, 2013 Ciencia, physics, Science
At a March 21 NASA telephone news conference, scientists from the U.S. team participating in the European Space Agency’s Planck mission to map the cosmic microwave background (CMB) discussed Planck’s first cosmological results, including some surprising news. For one thing, the universe is 13.82 billion years old, a hundred million years older than previously thought, [...]
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The Last Big Bump Before a Supernova Explodes

febrero 6, 2013 Ciencia, physics, Science, Supernova
The Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) brings together universities, observatories, and one national laboratory to hunt for supernovae and other astronomical objects. At the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) Berkeley Lab processes and stores the data from PTF’s surveys, which use the Oschin Telescope at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory. On August 25, 2010, PTF’s “autonomous machine-learning [...]
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The Farthest Supernova Yet for Measuring Cosmic History

enero 9, 2013 Ciencia, News Releases, physics, Science, Supernova, Top Story
In 2004 the Supernova Cosmology Project used the Hubble Space Telescope to find a tantalizing supernova that appeared to be almost 10 billion light-years distant. But Berkeley Lab scientists had to wait until a new camera was installed on the Hubble years later before they could confirm the candidate's identity and redshift as a Type Ia “standard candle.” The spectrum and light curve of supernova SCP-0401 are now known with clarity; it is the supernova furthest back in time that can be used for precise measurements of the expansion history of the universe.
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How do You Know if You Ran Through a Wall?

enero 4, 2013 Ciencia, Nuclear Science, physics, Science
Researchers from Canada, California, and Poland have devised a straightforward way to test an intriguing idea about the nature of dark energy and dark matter. A global array of atomic magnetometers – small laboratory devices that can sense minute changes in magnetic fields – could signal when Earth passes through fractures in space known as [...]
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Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Gives a Big Boost to BigBOSS

diciembre 4, 2012 awards, Ciencia, News Releases, physics, Science, Top Story
Through UC Berkeley and the Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has made a $2.1 million grant to Berkeley Lab’s BigBOSS project. The grant funds the development of key technologies for modifying the 4-meter Mayall Telescope on Kitt Peak and constructing a precision instrument to study dark energy by mapping tens of millions of galaxies and quasars over the entire Northern Hemisphere sky.
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BOSS Quasars Unveil a New Era in the Expansion History of the Universe

noviembre 7, 2012 Ciencia, News Releases, physics, Science, Top Story
By collecting tens of thousands of quasar spectra, the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) has measured the large-scale structure of the early universe for the first time. Like backlights in the fog, the quasars illuminate clouds of hydrogen gas along the line of sight. No other technique can reach back over 10 billion years to probe structure at a time when the expansion of the universe was still decelerating and dark energy was yet to turn on.
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I’m Going to Tell You…

octubre 19, 2012 Ciencia, Science

–by T.I. Meyer, Head of Strategic Planning and Communication

Public science lectures, events, cafés: They are everywhere!  This past weekend, the ATLAS group at TRIUMF went to Science World in downtown Vancouver and gave a science talk about the Higgs, hosted a virtual tour of the ATLAS control room, and answered thousands of questions. Nearly 10,000 people passed through the doors that day.  This past Tuesday night, Perimeter Institute director Neil Turok presented his third CBC Massey lecture, this one in Vancouver at UBC’s Chan Centre.  The sell-out crowd was nearly 1,000 people.  Last night near the waterfront station, TRIUMF science director Reiner Kruecken gave a talk about nuclear astrophysics at the public session of the APS Northwest Sectional meeting.  And on November 1, the director of the NIH Human Genome Research Institute Eric Green will be giving a public talk about genomics and its future influence on clinical practice at GenomeBC.

Why is all of this happening?  Can’t people just get enough of science and technology from YouTube, university classes, and specialized television programs?  Heck, why did *I* go to some of these events?  Is it the same reason I choose to attend certain music concerts or watch a play in person in the theatre?

I thought about this for awhile, and this is what I started to see.

Humans are social creatures.  Maybe I am showing my age, but I still prefer being in a group and learning about something rather than sitting at home in a darkened room and just clicking and scrolling on my computer.  I actually have different brain chemistry when in a group and listening to someone.  At the Massey lecture, there was even something fun about my seatmate whispering questions to me during the talk (for instance, If the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, does that mean the Solar System is actually getting bigger right now?).  It would have been weird to have Neil Turok come over to my house and record his lecture in my living room with just me as the audience, right?

There’s something curious and fascinating about leading scientists and thinkers in person. I saw the Premier of British Columbia in a coffee shop this morning; she was just getting a cup of coffee like I was, and yet it was still “cool.”  Listening to Neil Turok was special because he peppered his discussion of “What banged (in the Big Bang)?” with personal anecdotes, with humor, and with observations about history.  I can get that same feel when I listen to the broadcasts on CBC Radio of course. I got to hear it “first” and “in the raw.”

There’s something neat about hearing something live, in the moment.  And I got to hear what was happening “right now” rather than waiting for the lecture to be broadcast or waiting for someone to write a Wikipedia article about it.

     

    What do you think?  Why do people still throng to gather ‘round and listen to and talk about science and particle physics?  What can we do to provide even more of what is needed and wanted?

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    Crisis Looms as Berkeley Lab’s Last Main Road is Named for Nobelist Perlmutter

    octubre 15, 2012 awards, Ciencia, Feature Stories, physics, Science
    During the Open House Lecture Series on October 13 one of the last remaining unnamed roads on the Berkeley Lab site was christened for the 2011 Nobel Prize winner in Physics, Saul Perlmutter. There may be billions of stars in the sky but there aren't many streets left to be named after Nobel Prize winners. When it comes to road names, the Lab’s future Nobelists could face a serious road shortage -- one more reason we need a second campus.
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