Not everyone is appreciative of our efforts to explain dark energy to a wider audience.

From: [redacted]@aol.com

Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 14:19:00 EST

Subject: dark junk hoax

To: carroll@theory.uchicago.edu



i am amazed you morons are trying to keep this crap alive...along  with 

'inflation'....hawking as i do thinks it is junk.....why cant you  acknowledge that 

hoyle, narlikar, and burbridge are right with their ideas  published 3-4 yrs 

ago...i know that none of you can admit that halton arp is  dead right with 

his postulate that redshift is not solely distance  related.....the whole of us 

and british scientific punditry have so much  reputations at stake that they 

will never accord hoyle, arp and others the  recognition due......and you fools 

have wasted 30 yrs and billions of dollars in  an obscece 'cover-your-ass'  

endeavor...you make me sick

If anyone’s interested, Ned Wright has done a thorough job of explaining why some “alternatives” to the Big Bang are all miserable failures. My own intemperate thoughts are here. Amazing to me how emotional people get about this.

Longtime Preposterous readers know that there’s nothing that excites me quite like dark energy. It is, after all, about seventy percent of the energy of the universe, so there’s a lot to be excited about. Not to mention that we understand very little about it, and it might provide crucial clues to the ultimate reconciliation of gravity and quantum mechanics, so it’s worth paying attention to.

(click for larger version — credit Sky & Telescope)
Still, dark energy (a nearly-uniform energy density in every cubic centimeter of space, practically constant through time) is a tricky concept, so it’s worth taking every opportunity we have to explain what we know about it and what we’re still trying to learn. I have an article in the March issue of Sky & Telescope that attempts to survey just that. (Not available online, I’m afraid.) The article, unimaginatively titled “Dark Energy and the Preposterous Universe,” is basically a written version of the talk that I often give to popular audiences. Some day I will get around to writing an entire book that fleshes out these ideas even more. In my spare time.

If you’d like to actually hear a popular talk on dark energy live and in person, book your tickets now to Aspen, where I’ll be giving a public lecture on February 16th, in association with the winter conference on particle physics. Nobody ever said that physicists didn’t know how to live. Even more exclusively, I’m organizing a dark energy symposium at the upcoming meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington DC. It’s a great line-up of speakers: Adam Riess talking about supernova measurements of the expansion of the universe, Licia Verde talking about how we can use the CMB and large-scale structure to constrain dark energy, John Carlstrom on building new telescopes to observe the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect in clusters of galaxies as a novel handle on the evolution of the universe, Lenny Susskind on the string theory landscape and the anthropic principle, and Gia Dvali on brane worlds and modified gravity. Of course, you have to register for the meeting, so it’s not easy to actually go to the symposium. But there should be a good selection of journalists in attendance, so hopefully the message will be spread far and wide.

I’m not sure how “carnival” became chosen to describe a collection of self-submitted blog posts. Seems like “pot luck” would be a more accurate description. Nevertheless, get your favorite science posts ready for the next Tangled Bank, to be hosted at JasmineCola. The deadline is tomorrow (Weds), so don’t delay; submit your entries to host@tangledbank.net.

Tangled Bank is by now practically an old-timer as these things go. A newcomer on the block is the Carnival of the Godless, to be hosted for the first time at Unscrewing the Inscrutable. They are looking for posts about religion/philosophy/atheism “from a godless perspective,” although you yourself don’t have to be godless. The deadline is Friday the 28th, so submit to cotg-submission@brentrasmussen.com if you have something godless to say.

Finally, check out the latest Carnival of the Commies over at TigerHawk. A righty takes a deep breath and surveys the lefty blogosphere. Jack does a good job, and is susceptible to flattery. Preposterous gets a mention for our lament about the decision not to service the Hubble Space Telescope; to be sure, the decision would have been equally lamentable if it had been made by a liberal, and I would think many conservatives are just as disappointed as I am.

Update: Tangled Bank is here.

James Wolcott raises an interesting point about Johnny Carson:

In retirement, Carson became appalled by the degeneration of cable news coverage and political discourse post 9/11. I received a wonderful note from him a few years ago–a note from Johnny Carson! I’ve never opened an envelope more gingerly–in which he lamented the dying out of voices of reason such as astronomer Carl Sagan, a frequent guest on his show. An astronomy buff himself, Carson prized science and reason. In his latter years he must have felt even more estranged from a country embracing its own hysteria.

David Letterman, of course, does occasionally have scientists on; Brian Greene did a yeomanlike job trying to explain string theory, and Sir Martin Rees was spectacular at talking about astronomy. But Letterman is ultimately too nihilistic to care too obviously about the state of the public discourse or any such thing. In that sense, the closest we have to Carson’s true heir is probably Jon Stewart.

Congratulations to the handsome and powerful Philadelphia Eagles, who vanquished some pretenders from Atlanta to win the NFC Championship (after three straight unsuccessful tries) and book their tickets to the Super Bowl. There they will face the New England Patriots, who will be favored by about a touchdown. Which will make the ultimate victory by our men in green all the more sweet. I’m calling it 24-13 for the Iggles. (Lost in the fuss about receiver Terrell Owens’ injury and coach Andy Reid’s decision to sit all the starters in meaningless games at the end of the season is the fact that the Eagles’ defense has become scary good.) No doubt Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts will enjoy eating cheesesteaks after his team’s inevitable defeat.

As a nice sidelight to the story, the Eagles are led by Irish-American quarterback Donovan McNabb, pictured at right. In previous years, certain misguided pundits have questioned whether athletes of Irish extraction had the necessary mental abilities (to go along with their obvious physical gifts) to lead a football team to ultimate success. Happily, by now Irish quarterbacks have become so commonplace that only the most Neanderthal of commentators continue to question their effectiveness.

If it weren’t, you know, important. So, the Second Inaugural Address was the “freedom speech,” in which the President harped on the theme of spreading freedom throughout the world. (Some transcripts, in the hands of trained readers, came out differently.) Much tough talk about democracy being good, tyranny being bad, stuff like that.

Of course, the educated blog-reading public understands that it’s all hypocritical nonsense. The President is supposed to say things like that; what’s he going to say, that our support for repressive dictatorships will be strictly limited to those cases when it seems to serve our immediate interests? But apparently some nervous folks in faraway lands actually thought he might be serious about cracking down on tyranny. Hysterical, no? So an aide was trotted out (anonymously, of course — this isn’t a gig you want on your resume) to explain to the innocent foreigners that the speech didn’t actually represent a policy of the United States — at least, not in the sense that the actual words in the speech were to be taken at face value. It was just business as usual, a little pep talk for the brave 51% that gave our President his mandate. Next thing you know, someone will actually think that tax cuts are the best way to eliminate the budget deficit.

Update: Apparently Giblets made the same mistake. We have to watch what we say, people.

In yet another example where the Administration ignores the advice of the National Academy of Sciences, the 2006 budget request will apparently not include any funds to service the Hubble Space Telescope.

WASHINGTON – The White House has eliminated funding for a mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope from its 2006 budget request and directed NASA to focus solely on de-orbiting the popular spacecraft at the end of its life, according to government and industry sources.

NASA is debating when and how to announce the change of plans. Sources told Space News that outgoing NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe likely will make the announcement Feb. 7 during the public presentation of the U.S. space agency’s 2006 budget request.

That budget request, according to government and industry sources, will not include any money for Hubble servicing but will include some money for a mission to attach a propulsion module to Hubble needed to safely de-orbit the spacecraft with a controlled re-entry into the Pacific Ocean. NASA would not need to launch such a mission before the end of the decade to guide the massive telescope safely into the ocean.

The decision came as a surprise to astronomers, who had been hopeful that a servicing mission would be launched.

Of course, the ultimate budget decision is in the hands of Congress, not the White House; it might be time for some letters to your Senators and Representatives.

Update: Here’s the National Academy study, if you’re interested: summary, full report.

Take all of the money currently in circulation in any given currency, and add it all up. You’d probably imagine that the currency with the greatest value is the US dollar, although the Euro is catching up. But now the dollar has been surpassed! But not by the Euro, after all. Can you guess?

The currency with the greatest value in circulation in the world today is — frequent flyer miles. About seven hundred billion dollars. They are often sold to credit-card companies at a valuation of two cents per mile. Perhaps not surprising to me, as I certainly have greater value in my miles than in actual cash money, but I didn’t think I was typical. Hopefully United won’t go out of business and leave me in the poor house. (Thanks to Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me.)

Promoted from the comments — a graph of the percentage of female physics faculty by country. (Note added: a dated one, obviously; I’m guessing 80’s.)

Do we see evidence here of universal behavior explained by innate cognitive differences, or simply the effects of contingent cultural factors? We report, you decide.

An honest-to-God story at CNN, from archy:

Poll: Nation split on Bush as uniter or divider

Forty-nine percent of 1,007 adult Americans said in phone interviews they believe Bush is a “uniter,” according to the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Wednesday. Another 49 percent called him a “divider,” and 2 percent had no opinion.

The results nearly match those of a poll taken in October 2004, which showed 48 percent considered Bush a “uniter” and 48 percent called him a “divider,” with 4 percent having no opinion.

Did a uniting actually happen?