Science & Innovation

Although the story of the Big Bang in its essence is quite simple and straightforward, it contains many fascinating subtleties that are worth exploring further. It is good to get some conceptual hurdles and misconceptions out of the way right now.

The Corot satellite strikes again with another fascinating planet discovery. This time, the newly discovered gas giant planet may have an interior that closely resembles those of Jupiter and Saturn in our own Solar System.

"This is our first detailed look inside the biggest storm of the Solar System," says Glenn Orton, who led the team of astronomers that made the study. "We once thought the Great Red Spot was a plain old oval without much structure, but these new results show that it is, in fact, extremely complicated."

What may surprise people is how rapidly the universe went from a very hot initial state to one in which it was cool enough for atoms and molecules to form.

The starting point of the Big Bang story is a cosmic event that started out small and expanded rapidly (like an explosion). This event brought into being the universe we now inhabit and produced all the matter that our universe is presently composed of, though not in its present form. The time at the beginning is arbitrarily set to zero.

In order to understand the Big Bang theory, we need to have an understanding of the nature of energy in addition to that of matter that was discussed in my previous post.

Superconductors, materials in which current flows without resistance, have tantalizing applications. But even the highest-temperature superconductors require extreme cooling before the effect kicks in, so researchers want to know when and how superconductivity comes about in order to coax it into existence at room temperature.

Here is the official movie trailer from the 1969 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, directed by Stanley Kubrick.

One of science's greatest theories, evolution, is under attack. The threat is emerging from the only scientific superpower on Earth--provoking some of the biggest names in science to hit back.

Noam Chomsky launches a savage, two-pronged assault on national economic policies and efforts at “global domination….By now the stakes are so high that issues of survival arise,” says Chomsky.

Space physicists from the University of Leicester are part of an international team that has identified the impact of the Sun on Mars’ atmosphere.

Einstein's General Theory of Relativity explains gravity in terms of the curvature of space by mass. Dating from the second decade of the 20th century, after more than 90 years it is still the basis of our understanding of how gravity works to shape the cosmos.

A team led by Princeton University scientists has tested Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity to see if it holds true at cosmic scales. And, after two years of analyzing astronomical data, the scientists have concluded that Einstein's theory, which describes the interplay between gravity, space and time, works as well in vast distances as in more local regions of space.

I was recently asked by a relative to provide a simple explanation of the Big Bang theory 'in words of one syllable', i.e., without using jargon or esoteric scientific concepts and in a way that it could be understood by non-scientists. So here goes my attempt at fulfilling that request. In doing so I have tried to follow a paraphrase of Einstein's dictum that says that when explaining something we should make things as simple as possible, but not simpler. In other words don't distort in the search for simplicity. In trying to achieve this goal, I have created a multi-part series. (I promised my relative that my explanation would be simple, not short!)

Cell phones and laptop computers that run for longer between charges may be one outcome of research at Waikato University.