esiegel

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Ethan Siegel

Ethan was born in New York City as the son of a Jewish postal worker. He did his undergrad at Northwestern, taught public school in Houston, Texas and Los Angeles, California, before moving to Florida, where he got his PhD in theoretical astrophysics at the University of Florida. After that, he moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where he taught at the University of Wisconsin, ate too much cheese, and also met his life partner, Jamie. After working in astrophysics research at the University of Arizona and starting the world-renowned science blog, Starts With A Bang, he moved from the hellish desert to rain-soaked Portland in 2008. Since then, he's been a professor at the University of Portland and Lewis & Clark College, grown a nationally renowned beard and mustache, got invited to join a circus and probably drank more beer than a healthy person should. He currently works as the head curator at Trapit, and can't wait to tell you a little bit more about the Universe.

Posts by this author

Hubble views the final frontier for dark matter (Synopsis)
May 8, 2017
"We find them smaller and fainter, in constantly increasing numbers, and we know that we are reaching into space, farther and farther, until, with the faintest nebulae that can be detected with the greatest telescopes, we arrive at the frontier of the known universe." -Edwin Hubble When you look…
Comments of the Week #159: From seeing Mercury to the stars going dark
May 7, 2017
“It all had a beginning in the original cosmic explosion, whatever that was, and it'll all have an end when all the stars run down.” -Isaac Asimov, The Last Question Each week brings new challenges, new questions, new topics and new things to think about here at Starts With A Bang! For those of you…
Ask Ethan: How far is the edge of the Universe from the farthest galaxy? (Synopsis)
May 6, 2017
“Despite its name, the big bang theory is not really a theory of a bang at all. It is really only a theory of the aftermath of a bang.” -Alan Guth When we look to the deepest reaches of space, we can look for the “first” of any type of object. The first galaxy, the first star, the first light from…
When will the first star go dark? (Synopsis)
May 5, 2017
"End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it." -J.R.R. Tolkien Stars live for a variety of ages, from just a million or two years for some to tens of…
No, mysterious signals from space are not dark matter (Synopsis)
May 4, 2017
"Two recent studies by teams in the U.S. and the Netherlands have shown that the gamma-ray excess at the galactic center is speckled, not smooth as we would expect for a dark matter signal. Those results suggest the speckles may be due to point sources that we can’t see as individual sources..." -…
There is sound in space, thanks to gravitational waves (Synopsis)
May 3, 2017
"We have never observed infinity in nature. Whenever you have infinities in a theory, that's where the theory fails as a description of nature. And if space was born in the Big Bang, yet is infinite now, we are forced to believe that it's instantaneously, infinitely big. It seems absurd." -Janna…
There's no science behind denying climate change (Synopsis)
May 2, 2017
"Whether humans are responsible for the bulk of climate change is going to be left to the scientists, but it's all of our responsibility to leave this planet in better shape for the future generations than we found it." -Mike Huckabee It only makes sense that scientists should debate and argue over…
What's the largest galaxy in the Universe? (Synopsis)
May 1, 2017
"There is always a heavy demand for fresh mediocrity. In every generation the least cultivated taste has the largest appetite." -Paul Gauguin From our vantage point within the Milky Way, it sure does appear impressive. Hundreds of billions of stars shine in our own cosmic backyard, with our galaxy…
Comments of the Week #158: from event horizons to time travel
April 30, 2017
“Time travel used to be thought of as just science fiction, but Einstein's general theory of relativity allows for the possibility that we could warp space-time so much that you could go off in a rocket and return before you set out.” -Stephen Hawking As always, there's been a new fantastic week of…
Ask Ethan: Why can't I see Mercury without a telescope? (Synopsis)
April 29, 2017
"I long ago abandoned the notion of a life without storms, or a world without dry and killing seasons. Life is too complicated, too constantly changing, to be anything but what it is. And I am, by nature, too mercurial to be anything but deeply wary of the grave unnaturalness involved in any…
Is time travel possible, according to science? (Synopsis)
April 28, 2017
"One of the great things about music is that it has the capability of time travel - you smell a certain smell in the room and it takes you back to your childhood. I feel like music is able to do that, and it happens to me all the time." -M. Ward Have you ever wondered about time travel? Perhaps you…
How To Prove Einstein's Relativity For Less Than $100 (Synopsis)
April 27, 2017
"The experiments that we will do with the LHC [Large Hadron Collider] have been done billions of times by cosmic rays hitting the earth. ... They're being done continuously by cosmic rays hitting our astronomical bodies, like the moon, the sun, like Jupiter and so on and so forth. And the earth's…
We've lost sight of the most important rule in debating science (Synopsis)
April 26, 2017
"You must remember, my dear lady, the most important rule of any successful illusion: First, the people must want to believe in it." -Libba Bray There are many times throughout history that science -- and scientists -- have gotten it wrong. And there are many topics today that are quite polarized,…
What’s The Largest Planet In The Universe? (Synopsis)
April 24, 2017
"A few centuries ago, the pioneer navigators learnt the size and shape of our Earth, and the layout of the continents. We are now just learning the dimensions and ingredients of our entire cosmos, and can at last make some sense of our cosmic habitat." -Martin Rees You might think that Jupiter is…
Double Comments of the Week #157: From physics' predictions to Michelson-Morley
April 23, 2017
“Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other.” -Walter Elliot It's been two great weeks here at Starts With A Bang, where we've seen an incredible slew of new articles, new contributions, and literally hundreds of comments where nobody needed to get banned! To all of…
Ask Ethan: What Should A Black Hole's Event Horizon Look Like? (Synopsis)
April 22, 2017
“It is conceptually interesting, if not astrophysically very important, to calculate the precise apparent shape of the black hole... Unfortunately, there seems to be no hope of observing this effect.” -Jim Bardeen Black holes were one of the first consequences of general relativity that were…
The Failed Experiment That Changed The World (Synopsis)
April 21, 2017
"It appears, from all that precedes, reasonably certain that if there be any relative motion between the earth and the luminiferous ether, it must be small; quite small enough entirely to refute Fresnel's explanation of aberration." -Albert A. Michelson In the 1880s, it was clear that something was…
New LHC Results Hint At New Physics... But Are We Crying Wolf? (Synopsis)
April 20, 2017
"In recent years several new particles have been discovered which are currently assumed to be “elementary,” that is, essentially structureless. The probability that all such particles should be really elementary becomes less and less as their number increases. It is by no means certain that…
Why Does The Proton Spin? Physics Holds A Surprising Answer (Synopsis)
April 19, 2017
"We must regard it rather as an accident that the Earth (and presumably the whole solar system) contains a preponderance of negative electrons and positive protons. It is quite possible that for some of the stars it is the other way about." -Paul Dirac You might think that the proton, made up of…
60 years of starstuff: how humanity discovered where our elements come from (Synopsis)
April 18, 2017
"You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution and for life - weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your…
10 Reasons Why You Should March For Science (Synopsis)
April 17, 2017
"We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later…
Ask Ethan: What was the entropy of the Universe at the Big Bang? (Synopsis)
April 15, 2017
"Entropy shakes its angry fist at you for being clever enough to organize the world." -Brandon Sanderson The universe was born hot, dense, expanding, full of matter, antimatter and radiation... and in a low-entropy state. If entropy is a measure of disorder, though, that sure does sound like an…
How would the Universe change if we grew an extra dimension? (Synopsis)
April 14, 2017
“There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition.” -Rod Serling If we take a look at a two-dimensional surface, it’s pretty apparent that…
There's a physics trick to keep your shoes from coming untied (Synopsis)
April 13, 2017
"I do have a blurred memory of sitting on the stairs and trying over and over again to tie one of my shoelaces, but that is all that comes back to me of school itself." -Roald Dahl Most of us learn to tie our shoes when we’re very young, go through life tying it through that very same method, and…
The Future Of Energy Isn't Fossil Fuels Or Renewables, It's Nuclear Fusion (Synopsis)
April 12, 2017
"I would like nuclear fusion to become a practical power source. It would provide an inexhaustible supply of energy, without pollution or global warming." -Stephen Hawking Climate science is a hotly debated area, with many disputing the robustness and ethical motivations of the scientists in the…
No, dark energy isn't an illusion (Synopsis)
April 11, 2017
"Losing an illusion makes you wiser than finding a truth." -Ludwig Borne Every so often, an idea comes up in physics claiming that perhaps dark energy isn't real. The ideas focus on one of two lines of thought: either they discount the observational evidence, or they attempt to show that all the…
How Lucky Was Hubble To Find The Most Distant Galaxy Ever? (Synopsis)
April 10, 2017
"We’ve taken a major step back in time, beyond what we’d ever expected to be able to do with Hubble. We see GN-z11 at a time when the universe was only three percent of its current age." -Pascal Oesch Arriving at our eyes after a journey of 13.4 billion years, the light from galaxy GN-z11 has been…
Comments of the Week #156: from fermions and bosons to saving particle physics
April 9, 2017
“There is a fine line between censorship and good taste and moral responsibility.” -Stephen Spielberg Another week full of amazing science stories has gone by here at Starts With A Bang, and there are some fun and fantastic announcements! We welcomed a new contributor, Jess Shanahan, to our ranks;…
Ask Ethan: Why Is There A Limit To What Physics Can Predict? (Synopsis)
April 8, 2017
"There is a limit on how much information you can keep bottled up." -Dick Gregory There are fundamental limits to the Universe, in the sense that there are scales where our laws of physics break down. You can't break matter or energy up into infinitely small pieces, and the same goes -- we think…
Can Muons - Which Live For Just Microseconds - Save Experimental Particle Physics? (Synopsis)
April 7, 2017
"It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop." -Confucius The large hadron collider is the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, colliding two protons at energies of 6.5 TeV apiece. But you’ll never have the full 13 TeV of energy available for that collision, thanks to the…