Tag Archives: blog1

Deep Time and the Cosmic Calendar

Posted on January 27, 2013 by fosterec

As an Earth & Environmental Sciences major, I’ve become very familiar with the concept of Deep Time over the past few years. In addition to making a great  band name (alas, it has been done), deep time is the easiest way to think about time on a geological or cosmological scale. The Cosmic Calendar provides a […] Continue reading →

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A Light Perspective

Posted on January 27, 2013 by wherrysg

Source The fact that I have been unable to truly grasp the size of the universe–much less be able to put into perspective things like the speed of sound and light–I believe is largely attributed to this topic (Astronomy) involving surreal and almost unimaginable concepts. Much of my experience with the concept of the speed […] Continue reading →

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Just how big is the universe?

Posted on January 27, 2013 by AlanL

It is impossible to comprehend just how big the universe is simply from a description. I could tell you that the Earth is approximately 150 million km from the sun and that it takes over 8 minutes for the sun’s light to reach us but understanding it is completely different. This video uploaded by stormeindustries […] Continue reading →

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The Cosmic Calendar

Posted on January 27, 2013 by rtjobe

The purpose of the cosmic calendar is to put into perspective the relative time frame in which everything has happened in the universe. The 13.7 billion years of the universe’s life is condensed down into one Earth calendar year, with the big bang happening on the midnight of January 1st. Even though the big bang […] Continue reading →

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The Speed of Light

Posted on January 26, 2013 by juliettealper

http://www.guardian.co.uk/ The speed of light is a fascinating yet confusion concept. People frequently hear the term “lightyear” and assume that it is a measurement of time, but instead it is a measurement of distance. A lightyear is defined as how far light travels in a year. If someone was able to travel at the speed […] Continue reading →

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Scale, Relativity, and the Power of 10

Posted on January 26, 2013 by sharpew

For my first official blog post, I’d like to write about the Powers of Ten video, and the subsequent site I came across because of it. Although I have seen the Powers of Ten video in a class several years ago, watching it again filled me with the same sense of curiosity and amazement as […] Continue reading →

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Faster than the Speed of Light

Posted on January 26, 2013 by zvgio

Everyone knows that the speed of light is fast; “faster than the speed of light” is a common colloquialism. Thanks to almighty science, we know that light travels at 299,792,548 meters per second, compared to 27m/s for a car traveling 60mph. Due to human perception times, a speed of this magnitude makes light’s travel seem […] Continue reading →

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The Speed of Light

Posted on January 26, 2013 by Will K

Even looking through a telescope, outer space can be very daunting. There is a seemingly endless distance between us and even the closest stars. At 39,900,000,000,000 kilometers away, the nearest star to our own Sun is Proxima Centauri of the Alpha Centauri star system. This distance is so enormous that it takes 4.22 years for […] Continue reading →

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Powers of Ten and orders of magnitude

Posted on January 26, 2013 by astrdylan

For my first “real” blog post, I chose to check out the Powers of Ten video. I was interested in this prompt in particular because in my geomorphology class, we’ve been discussing orders of magnitude as a means of talking about geological concepts like subsidence, uplift, and the residence time of sediments, so I thought … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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Just what exactly can we call “big”?

Posted on January 26, 2013 by surujdeka

The Universe is almost like a magician in a way. Just when us puny humans seem to grasp an aspect of its nature (or pretend to anyway), it laughs at us and shows us a glimpse of something that leaves us in awe of its vastness. Take a look at this picture above you. Only […] Continue reading →

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