Author Archives: brandonandthesolarsystem

Black Holes

Posted on April 27, 2017 by brandonandthesolarsystem

While the concept of black holes has become a cultural phenomenon thanks to movies such as Interstellar, it still seems like the general public knows very little about them. In order to help clarify any misunderstandings, welcome to a brief introduction on black holes. In essence, a black hole consists of a massive amount of mass […] Continue reading →

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The Fermi Paradox

Posted on April 27, 2017 by brandonandthesolarsystem

The Fermi paradox is based entirely upon a lunch conversation between Enrico Fermi, an iconic physicist, and his friends and co-workers. When discussing their belief that there must be intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, Fermi asked a simple, but profound question: “Where is everybody?” While, on its surface, this question seems somewhat ridiculous, it […] Continue reading →

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Can you survive in space?

Posted on April 3, 2017 by brandonandthesolarsystem

For the astronaut shown above, he/she will be fine for now. As long as their space suit is intact, they should not be in any immediate danger of death. However, if their suit were to malfunction for some reason, what would happen next? This has been “explained” before in movies or television shows; but as we […] Continue reading →

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Pluto is a Planet Again!

Posted on April 2, 2017 by brandonandthesolarsystem

April fools! I know I am a day late with this, but I was surprised to find that this was a common thread appearing on my Facebook feed over the weekend. As is common when “news” appears on social media, an “article” was being passed around that seemingly few people even bothered to read. Instead, the headline […] Continue reading →

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Climate Change

Posted on April 2, 2017 by brandonandthesolarsystem

Climate change is a known natural phenomena – for example, the Earth has gone through periods of extreme cold (the Ice Ages) and has always bounced back to the temperatures we know and love today. What isn’t a natural phenomenon is the rapid acceleration of climate change that has been taking place in recent history. […] Continue reading →

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The Big Crunch

Posted on February 14, 2017 by brandonandthesolarsystem

While the Big Bang has become the quintessential theory for the beginning of the universe, the possible future of the universe is still an open question. While the universe we currently observe is expanding in all directions, who is to say that this expansion will continue indefinitely. And if the expansion of the universe ends, […] Continue reading →

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Gravitational Waves

Posted on February 13, 2017 by brandonandthesolarsystem

Up until about two years ago, gravitational waves were rarely discussed outside of the scientists who based their careers on its discovery. To the public, the entire phenomena was unknown. However, that quickly changed on September 14, 2015 when the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave observatory directly detected gravitational waves. As this news spread across the globe, […] Continue reading →

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Ether and the Michelson-Morley Experiment

Posted on February 13, 2017 by brandonandthesolarsystem

Before Einstein’s revolutionary ideas changed the landscape of physics, very little was known about the speed of light. The fact is that, at the time, light was an anomaly; it had characteristics unique to anything else we experienced in the world. For example, was light a particle or a wave? And more importantly, if light […] Continue reading →

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Welcome!

Posted on January 15, 2017 by brandonandthesolarsystem

Hello everybody! My name is Brandon and I am a Physics/Math double major and a Philosophy minor here at Vanderbilt University. Continue reading →

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