Tag: general relativity
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Dropping science like Galileo dropped the orange
Over the past few years, the MICROSCOPE spacecraft performed precision experiments to test the difference between gravitational mass, which governs how strongly matter responds to gravity, and inertial mass, which is the measure of resistance to being pushed. Our modern theory of gravity, Einstein’s general theory of relativity, says these masses are equivalent, which is…
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Seeing the unseeable: humanity’s first image of a black hole
Yesterday, the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration released the first image of a black hole humanity has ever seen. That simple-looking image represents a century of scientific work: from the first theoretical calculations describing black holes; to the earliest hints that every large galaxy contains a supermassive black hole at its heart; to the technological advances…
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Earth is a freeeeee faaaallin’ laboratory for testing general relativity
[ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most recent publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all the science stories I write! ] And if I can be shameless: Forbes pays according to traffic, so the more of you who click on the link below and read my stuff, the better they…
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Testing Einstein’s theory with a new space probe to Mercury
[ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most recent publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all the science stories I write! ] And if I can be shameless: Forbes pays according to traffic, so the more of you who share and visit and read my stuff, the better they pay me.…
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When testing gravity, no news is good news
[ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most recent publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all the science stories I write! ] Looking for nothing to test gravity When they look for violations of Einstein’s general relativity, physicists deliberately plan experiments to find nothing at all. For Symmetry Magazine: In 1887,…
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Seeing the invisible monster at the Milky Way center
[ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most recent publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all the science stories I write! ] This is my second print magazine feature for Smithsonian Air & Space Magazine. The first was about gravitational waves, published not long before the LIGO detector found the first gravitational…
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Some heavy facts about gravity
[ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most recent publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all the science stories I write! ] I’m not generally the type of writer who makes listicles, but I’m producing a few for Symmetry Magazine this year. The first covers the OG of fundamental forces: gravity!…
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Be very very quiet, we’re hunting gravitational waves
[ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most recent publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all the science stories I write! ] Gravitational waves and where to find them Advanced LIGO has just begun its search for gravitational waves For Symmetry Magazine: For thousands of years, astronomy was the province of…
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I Love Q, and now you can too!
I wrote a feature story for Physics World on an interesting little discovery about neutron stars, but unfortunately the article wasn’t in their free online edition. HOWEVER, the editors have kindly let me repost the article here in PDF format for free download! (Here’s the summary I wrote a few weeks ago.) Physics World is…
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How can we see black holes if they’re invisible?
[ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most recent publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all the science stories I write! ] The Shadow of a Black Hole From NOVA: The invisible manifests itself through the visible: so say many of the great works of philosophy, poetry, and religion. It’s also…
Bowler Hat Science 