Fireflies & Laserbeams

Dark Energy? Maybe not.

Monday January 6, 2020 | By Hieronymus Hawkes | Science | Leave Comments

[caption id="attachment_1741" align="alignnone" width="778"]dark energy (Image: Volker Springle/Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics/SP)[/caption] I am feeling validated by the news that came out today regarding Dark Energy. A team of astronomers at Yonsei University (Seoul, South Korea), together with their collaborators at Lyon University and KASI (Korea Astronomy and Science Institute), showed that the key assumption in the theory is based on erroneous data. I had been saying all along that the measurements were suspect. I posted this back in February 2011: Why do I Love Science Fiction? The whole story is here: New evidence shows that the key assumption made in the discovery of dark energy is in error newevidences I have been saying this from the beginning that it seemed to break the Simplicity principle. Most philosophers believe that, other things being equal, simpler theories are better than more complex ones and the Dark Energy theory was reliant on a lot of long range measurements that were open to a wide array of issues that might interfere with them. It seemed to leap to a conclusion based on data that was not very robust and to me, on lazy science. This doesn't mean the universe isn't flying apart, or accelerating, but the idea that we couldn't detect 95% of the universe verges on the absurd on the face. It seemed to me more likely that the measurements were wrong. They made a lot of assumptions. Turns out their assumptions are likely wrong, as I surmised. I think the Webb (JWST) telescope, which  launches next year will provide scientists with better information with which to make better theories.

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Curiosity has landed!

Monday August 6, 2012 | By Hieronymus Hawkes | Blogging | Leave Comments

If you have been living in a hole somewhere and missed the news, the Mars Science Laboratory, callsign Curiosity, landed early this morning very close to the target spot in the Gale Crater.  It's this kind of stuff that really gets my juices flowing.  I really wanted to stay up and watch but I had to be at work at 0630 this morning and it didn't land until well after midnight Eastern time.  The picture here was taken from an orbiter as Curiosity was landing, pretty inspiring stuff. A lot of people were down on NASA but they proved they can still pull off the incredibly difficult and make it look easy.  My hat is off. And FYI for those people out there wondering why we spend so much money on this kind of thing, we get back $10 for every $1 we spend as an investment.  It's money extremely well spent in my opinion. The location they picked is believed to have once held water ice and they will be looking for more clues.  I can't wait to hear more from this exciting mission.  Here is a LINK to the NASA Page for more info. Clear Ether!

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