hubble’s constant

cosmology / Physics / Relativity / etc.

Always Walk Away From An Explosion—The Story of the Big Bang

jonah 13
Boom!

We were fortunate to be there a day or two before ‘the big bang’ and then we got the heck out of town. ~Scotty Moore A few weeks ago, +Matthew Villaneuva asked the following question on Google+: Does anybody else find the Big Bang (the scientific explanation on how the universe got created) weird? Actually, yes! Just a century ago, everyone believed that the universe was static—i.e., that it had always existed and that it would always continue to exist. Even Albert Einstein held this view. I previously explained why we know the universe is expanding, so I’m going

cosmology / Geometry / Mathematics / etc.

Receding Horizons: Dark Energy and the Expanding Universe

jonah 21
Einstein and Hubble

Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and lead us from this world to another. ~Plato The history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons. ~Edwin Powell Hubble Last week, I discussed the possible shapes our universe could take. I offhandedly mentioned that not only is the universe expanding, but that that expansion is accelerating. We attribute this expansion to a mysterious phenomenon we call dark energy. This week, I want to explore the history of this idea and the beautiful experiments that tell us all is not as it seems. The Static Universe and Einstein’s Greatest Blunder