Opinion I’m an Astronomer and Astrophysicist by training and profession and care deeply about all living things, the state of our world and the planet we inhabit. In studying the universe and the natural world most of my life, I have come to learn a few things; among those, I’ve come to learn about the[…]
Here at Astronomy For Change, we’ve discussed at length, the recent discoveries, observations and scientific breakthroughs regarding these enigmatic objects whose light was emitted billions of years before the sun burned bright in space: A Discovery that Shook the World! In a galaxy far, far away, KiloNova Explosion From Neutron Star Merger Observed – Gravity[…]
On 3 October of 2017, in what the prestigious Royal Swedish Academy described simply as “a discovery that shook the world”, three Americans were awarded that year’s Nobel Prize in Physics “for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves”, waves famously predicted by Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity 105[…]
In this video, Dr. James Daly celebrates and discusses the Centenary of the first of many confirmations of Einstein’s Theory of Gravity, his General Theory of Relativity. On 29 May, 1919, observations were made of stars in the vicinity of the totally-eclipsed sun, a rare event that provided the conditions necessary for such an experiment[…]
How does the sun and other stars shine? In this, the first of a multi-part series, Dr. James Daly of Astronomy For Change (https://astronomyforchange.org) teaches us and illustrates how stars, incredibly dynamic and self-regulating, shine and evolve. With this video, we start with the sun as a model and an up-close and personal laboratory to[…]
Dr. James Daly of Astronomy for Change presents a public lecture on the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative that, if successful, will see the launch of humanities first interstellar mission. Thousands of nano-class, gram-mass scale robotic craft will be launched via a high-power, phased-array microwave laser to 20% the speed of light towards the nearest star system[…]
Dr. James Daly discusses Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity and Newton’s Laws within the context of a recent study published by UCLA’s Dr. Andrea Ghez of the Supermassive Black Hole at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way. The study can be found here: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2019/07/24/science.aav8137 https://phys.org/news/2019-07-einstein-relativity-theory.html Please like, share and subscribe. This subscription is[…]
During his years working in the Swiss Patent Office, Albert Einstein often imagined what it would be like to ride on beam of light. This thought experiment would come to play a key role in the development of his Special Theory of Relativity, one of the four great works produced during his 1905 Annus Mirabilis.[…]
What does it mean, Albert Einstein asked in 1905, to say that a train arrives someplace — in Paris, say — at 7 o’clock? It should be noted that last week, 30 June, 2019, is the 114th anniversary of Einstein’s publication of “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies“, his Special Theory of Relativity. What is[…]
Every year on the 29th of May, the anniversary of the famous 1919 Total Solar Eclipse, we celebrate Einstein’s Triumph, the experiment that provided incontrovertible evidence for the veracity of his theory on Gravity, the General Theory of Relativity. Up until the turn of the 20th century, the natural universe was governed by Newton’s Laws;[…]
On 4 December, 2017 Dr. James Daly of Astronomy For Change hosted a public event discussing the landmark discovery and optical counterpart observation of the merger of two Neutron Stars. The discovery was made on 17 August, 2017 using the US-Based LIGO Gravity Wave Telescope Array and the Virgo gravitational wave observatory located near Pisa,[…]
This video is the first in a short series on this topic. Many studies of late have been published regarding this enigmatic phenomenon known as “Dark Matter“. The term is a misnomer since the expression suggests that there is some “matter”, some quantifiable, measurable quantity, heretofore unobserved. This is not the case; the term was[…]
In an unprecedented observation of a class of objects that have been the center of much attention since they were first postulated by Karl Schwarzchild in 1916 using Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, a world-wide collaboration of astronomers will release tomorrow, the first ever images of 2 super-massive black holes, Sagittarius-A at the center of[…]
In Albert Einstein‘s 1915 General Theory of Relativity, his theory on Gravity and a brand new way of looking at the universe, it was predicted that the space in the vicinity of a massive object would be warped and thus, the appearance of anything whose light would pass through this region of space would be[…]
2017 Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded for Gravity Wave Detection A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… This now famous opening scroll of Star Wars is a fitting and appropriate way to open this story as it describes -perfectly- the environment, origin and progenitor of these waves. Yesterday, 3 October, in what[…]
Almost half a million of the people alive today were alive 100 years ago. These same people have seen so much during that time and we’ve learned far more than the great lights of that day could have ever imagined. Ironically, it was through some of those great lights that we have progressed as far[…]
Scientists are an interesting breed of people, they are creative, adventurers, critical, and pragmatic. This may not be the initial subset of people you would look to for inspiration. However, think for an instance of the motivation required to tackle the great intellectual challenges of our time. Scientists are driven by constant curiosity and inspired[…]
