The Improbable Universe

Slide Show + Audio (.mp4) Transcript: This is a talk I originally prepared to present as part of the 2206-2007 convocation series at Illinois College. Since then I have given it before several other audiences, and with every presentation I’ve had more people ask, will this be online. Finally,...

Type 1a Supernoave: A Non-Standard Candle

One of the most exciting discoveries of astronomy in recent years was the measurement of an acceleration term in the universe’s rate of expansion. Announced by both the Supernova Cosmology Project at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the High-z Supernova Search Team, these results at once...

Mostly Empty Space

When we look at the cosmic microwave background we see both overly warm and overly cold spots. The warm spots grew into places with a lot of stuff; namely our modern galaxies. The cold spots grew into places without a lot of stuff; these are cosmic voids. While we have known for a long time that some...

And it came from the CMB . . .

Fraser (my co-host over at Astronomy Cast) and I like to joke about how everything we know in astronomy we know because of the Cosmic Microwave Background. How do we know the universe formed during the Big Bang? The CMB. How do we know the cosmic geometry is flat? The CMB. How do we know the mass...