Noted planetary astronomer Mike Brown wrote:
One of the nice things about science is that no matter what you do, eventually, someone is likely to come along and make the same measurement more precisely than you did, and you will get to learn whether you were right or whether you screwed something up. When you screw up, you do so in a very public manner. Everyone knows. You don’t look so good. It’s best to not screw up.
The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics
“Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice…” *
What will be the final destiny of the Universe? Probably it will end in ice, if we are to believe this year’s Nobel Laureates in Physics. They have studied several dozen exploding stars, called supernovae, and discovered that the Universe is expanding at an ever-accelerating rate. The discovery came as a complete surprise even to the Laureates themselves.
Also see Universe Today and the New York TImes
For background I have some links at Really long range thinking and Long range forecast: Very, very cold and very, very dark,
Following up on last night’s post….
Let’s Go Slow on CERN Faster-Than-Light Claims
The skeptics are not simply saying “That’s impossible because it violates relativity.” They are pointing out that it directly contradicts the well established observations of Supernova 1987A. Hence Neutrinos on Speed concludes with a limerick.
Also see xkcd. I should try this: We could use some extra money. Any takers?
This Extraordinary Claim Requires Extraordinary Evidence!
Faster-than-light travel discovered? Slow down, folks
I am waiting to see what Sean at Cosmic Variance has to say.
Why a moon of Jupiter is brighter than the planet Neptune.
I saw this on the blog of a British Astrophysicist:
If you haven’t seen this problem before, why not have a go?
Not content with anti-vaccination nonsense, which I have noted before, you can also find Pseudo-Astronomy at the Huffington Post.
Get the facts at Betelgeuse and 2012 and Will Betelgeuse Really Become a Second Sun in 2012?.
At Physics World:
A settlement has been reached in a case brought against the University of Kentucky by astrophysicist Martin Gaskell over his claim that the university illegally denied him a staff position on the basis of his evangelical Christian faith. The settlement now requires the university to pay $125,000 to Gaskell and his lawyers, who claimed that the decision meant Gaskell lost income and caused him “emotional distress”. The university admits no wrongdoing in the case, which was due to go to trial on 8 February. Meanwhile, Gaskell has taken a job at Chile’s University of Valparaiso, which he will start in March.
Following up on the Gaskell affair.
From Hilbert Space to Dilbert Space, and beyond 