Archive for November, 2007

What good is basic research?

Tuesday, November 13th, 2007

There’s an easy answer to this question, and a better but more challenging answer. The easy answer is that when you’re just poking around, you might discover something important. A number of very important discoveries have been made that could not have easily been anticipated. Plastics and penicillin are two major serendipitous discoveries. My field, […]

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A Brief History of Dark Energy

Friday, November 9th, 2007

There was a time in the 1980s in comic books where superheroes had to be retooled to make them cooler, often by adding “dark” in front of their name. For example, Frank Miller’s graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns helped revive Batman as a leading character. In the 1990s, that trend hit cosmology with “dark […]

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Is SETI Worth It?

Thursday, November 8th, 2007

I really liked this article: SPACE.com — SETI: Is It Worth It? This article mirrors my thoughts on basic research and a lot of the points made apply not to just SETI, but to astronomy in general. It behooves us as a curious and thoughtful people to take some time and effort to look around […]

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Five qualities required to be a Scientist…

Monday, November 5th, 2007

Here’s one site about becoming a scientist: Cool Careers in Science What does it take to become a professional scientist? To get into graduate school, persevere, collect a PhD and land a job in the field? A lot of things, but not all obvious to the uninitiated. I used to like to tell people that […]

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