Blogs / Bad Astronomy

The 130th Carnival of Space blog roundup is being hosted by the Chandra blog. Yes, that Chandra. So go there and put your tax dollars to work.

Edited to add: My Hive Overmind compatriots at Cosmic Variance have more details.]

Hey, is the Earth still here? Because the Large Hadron Collider saw its first proton collisions today!

OK, it wasn’t at full power, and this is just a preliminary test, but still: It works!

In the graphic above (click to get the whole thing, plus others) shows the particles detected in the ATLAS experiment, one of the two big detectors on the LHC. The paths of the particles are shown, and they all trace back to one spot (or close enough), indicating they all emerged from the same patch of space inside the collider, just as you’d expect if they were the products of a subatomic collision.

There’s still a long way to go, but this was a very important step along the way. Congrats to everyone at CERN!

When I was in Florida for Carl Sagan Day, I was happy to see my friend Rachel Dunlop ("Dr. Rachie") from Australia was there too. She was in Miami, heard about the event at the last minute, and drove (on the wrong side of the road) to Ft. Lauderdale to attend.

Rachel is one of the many people who puts together the Skeptic Zone podcast, and she snagged a bunch of interviews at the celebration, including with D.J. Grothe, Randi, me… and my mom. Yes, my mother was there, and D.J. made sure she got to be in the interview as well. You can listen and comment on the podcast, and if you like it why not subscribe to the podcast via iTunes?

I just finished watching a live stream of a speech President Obama gave at the White House, pledging more support for science education in this country.

Woohoo!

[Edited to add: the speech transcript is now online, complete with Mythbusters shout-out.]

Science, technology, engineering, and math — STEM — education has been struggling for years. This new effort, called Educate to Innovate, is "…designed to energize and excite America’s students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics."

There are several avenues being taken, including partnering with the private sector. For example, Discovery Communications (the umbrella org for Discovery Channel and its sister channels) will be promoting science literacy, including a commercial-free science block of programming on the Science Channel, and STEM support for teachers.

I was particularly excited to hear Obama announce an annual science fair to be held at the White House! As he said, it’s time that people who have made extraordinary achievements in science stand beside athletes and others honored at the White House.

And as if he were channeling my brain, President Obama said this:

"We’re going to show young people how cool science can be."

Ah, hearing that is like a symphony to my ears. To which I’ll add: damn straight.

Also, I suspect that unlike many political statements, this is no mere lip service. Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, is involved with this project, and at the press conference were Adam Savage™ and Jamie Hyneman — I know they’ll work hard to make sure this happens.

And it’s up to all of us, too. As I find out more about this I’ll post info here, and see what we all can do to make sure this not only becomes a reality, but persists as a concrete effort that will not sway with the political winds. Our future relies heavily on how well we understand science and technology, and if you read this blog you know full well how people manipulate the public’s misunderstanding of STEM topics for political gain. This must stop, and the best weapon is an educated public.

Picture from Lara Eakin’s Twitter feed.

The cool website Information is Beautiful presents, um, well, information in a beautiful way. They recently posted a good guide to the sense and nonsense of the 2012 phenom, pretty much showing that the major claims of the doomcriers are baloney.

I haven’t checked every factoid of the graphic, but the part pictured above is cool: I independently came to this same conclusion a few months ago using some planetarium software to plot the position of the Sun and the Galactic center (and presented this at TAM 7, in fact). There are people out there trying to spin, fold, and mutilate astronomy to fit their pre-manufactured conclusions about 2012, but — as usual when it comes to doomsday scenarios — the actual facts show that these scaremongers’ claims are as vacuous as space itself.

Speaking of the LHC, the Boston Globe’s terrific feature The Big Picture has a slew of gorgeous pictures of the Large Hadron Collider up on the site.

These images, as beautiful and hi-res as they are, still cannot convey the awesome size and scale of the LHC. It’s been a year and a half since I stood there, 100 meters below of the surface of the Earth, gawking slack-jawed at ATLAS, CMS, and the other magnificent machinery, and it almost seems like a dream to me. But then I shake out of it and remember: this is what we do, and it’s real.

Secrets of the Universe? We humans figure that stuff out over coffee. What’s next?

So, check out the latest xkcd web comic (or click the picture to see the rest). I have to admit, he’s got a good point. And it’s so crazy it just might work. Hardware stores near Michael Shermer’s house better start keeping track of who buys what.

And is the number of this particular comic coincidence? I have a hard time believing it is.