Comments on: Navel-Gazing Links

By: Galactic Interactions » Blog Archive » Beyond Einstein ; Dark Energy & Others ; The Great NASA Cliff

Tue, 14 Nov 2006 23:44:04 +0000

[...] JDEM is itself part of a larger grand vision from NASA entitled “Beyond Einstein,” which included several space-based missions to look for gravitational waves, the demographics of black holes, dark energy, inflation, all that good cosmology/Big Bang kind of stuff. Here is an entry at the blog Science and Reason about Beyond Einstein and what’s going on; he also has a number of links to good background information about the missions. (This link is via Sean Carroll, who was on the committee that came up with the Beyond Einstein report in the first place.) Nowadays, it sounds like NASA is probably trying to pick which one of these will go. That’s kinda depressing. It’s all part of a vast trend of NASA money for actual astronomy and astrophysics drying up. There’s a lot of bold vision out there that might help us learn fundamental things about the nature of this very awesome and cool Universe we live in, but alas we don’t seem to have the money or will to really go out and investigate it. [...]

By: spyder

spyder — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 19:07:14 +0000

Sad i am to read that Bojo uses the faux taxpayer lament to criticize the ever-important need for academics to meet up regularly face-to-face. The overall public contribution to universities and colleges (and i am just referring to public institutions) is decreasing at alarming rates. Hovering as it is now around 20% and dropping, the funds that provide travel for conferences, meetings, symposia are nearly all derived from private sources. If the complaint is that such travel can be written off as deductions and/or exemptions for taxation, then the complaint is even more inappropriate. US corporations write off billions upon billions of dollars for these sorts of activities, but it seems that only the academics are guilty of depriving the citizens of some measure of obedience.

By: Piotr Florek

Piotr Florek — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 10:43:26 +0000

Sean,

I found at NASA website information about media conference you will participate in on Thursday. Text of this press release says that you guys will “announce the discovery that dark energy has been an ever-present constituent of space for most of the universe’s history”. And because ApJ will publish “New Hubble Space Telescope Discoveries of Type Ia Supernovae at z > 1: Narrowing Constraints on the Early Behavior of Dark Energy” soon, I guess Riess et al discovered that acceleration didn’t start around z=1, but earlier?

By: Malte

Malte — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 08:26:53 +0000

These days there are, as I understand, some very good reasons for flying as little as possible. Like ensuring the future of ground-based optical astronomy [Gerry Gilmore cited by BBC last year]...

By: Julianne

Julianne — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 05:09:14 +0000

I second Moshe’s point. I used to travel extensively (to the point where one year I received christmas cookies from American Airlines). However, since having kids, I’ve cut back to the bare minimum and replaced some travel with videoconferencing, and yet I still seem to be having a flourishing career. I’m not serving on as many big panels as I could, but I don’t think I’m losing much by pushing that off for a decade.

So, while travelling for work is frequently fun, and probably is necessary at the early stages of one’s career, it’s not essential to fly 100K/yr indefinitely.

By: Sean

Sean — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 04:53:32 +0000

Okay, I admit, if Allyson flounced off we would legitimately be crushed.

Shantanu, sorry I didn’t answer. I don’t think that anything dramatic has happened with the DI Her story — it still doesn’t fit GR, although it’s in a weak-field regime where Solar-System tests rule out any respectable alternative. Most likely, there is a third body in the system.

By: Shantanu

Shantanu — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 03:00:37 +0000

Sean, did you see my question DI Her. in the thread “out-einsteining einstein”?
Could you tell us what is the latest consensus on this and a few similar main-sequence binary
stars, whose apisidal motion did not agree with GR.
Thanks a lot.

By: Phil Plait, aka The Bad Astronomer

Phil Plait, aka The Bad Astronomer — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 02:59:42 +0000

I have been posting more politically lately, and some readers are gravely offended by this. Some have left dramatically, which I find amusing. I like to ask people, how much did you pay to read my blog again?

By: Dr. Free-Ride

Dr. Free-Ride — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 22:16:24 +0000

I’m totally jealous! The only rock stars who ever link me are you lot. (Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it.)

By: Amara

Amara — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 20:20:01 +0000

Upon searching (Queen's) Brian May's web site, I'm not sure if he has completed his zody cloud thesis, but from his words it seems to be close. What a wonderful and unexpected boost he is providing for public education about cosmic dust and astronomy!

By: Sam Gralla

Sam Gralla — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 20:01:16 +0000

Sean,

Thanks for the link about the beyond einstein program assessment committee.

-Sam

By: Moshe

Moshe — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 19:50:45 +0000

There is a small risk that all the travel talk will enhance the “80 hours a week” myth. I think this amount of travel is not typical, nor is it necessary to becoming or functioning as a professional physicist. In fact some of the most successful physicists hardly travel at all.

By: Allyson

Allyson — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 19:46:21 +0000

You would totally cry if I flounced off.

Not really here. I swear I’m writing. Help?

By: Amara

Amara — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 18:40:27 +0000

Queen's Brian May apparently has a thesis about zodiacal dust. I would love to have a look at it, if anyone knows where it can be found.

By: Sean

Sean — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 18:07:55 +0000

You are hereby pardoned, Bojo. We will attempt to struggle along without your imperfectly-loyal readership.

Seriously, we love having readers, but some seem to think that our paychecks and/or feelings of self-worth are tied to the number of blog hits we get, and that their huffy exits are mortally wounding. Blogging is fun, but sometimes the day job has to take priority.

By: Bojo

Bojo — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 17:52:26 +0000

All this blog seems to talk about anymore is the travel habits of its authors (and pardon me if I don’t think I’m getting my tax dollars worth). I’m taking you out of my RSS reader.