Wednesday, February 06, 2019

Brief items

This is the absolute most dense time of the year in terms of administrative obligations, so posting is going to be a bit sparse.  In the meantime, here is a bit of interesting reading:

Scientific American has an interesting article about the fact that two independent means of assessing the Hubble constant (analysis of the cosmic microwave background on one hand; analysis of "standard candles" on the other) disagree well outside the estimated systematic uncertainties.

Kip Thorne posted a biographical reminiscence about John Wheeler on the arxiv.  I haven't read it yet, but it's in my queue.

Quanta Magazine had put up a very well done article about turbulence.  Good stuff.  I liked the animation.

2 comments:

gilroy0 said...

For absolutely no rational reason, I have always been suspicious of the assumption that Type Ia supernova are truly "standard candles", so I claim vindication. :)

Douglas Natelson said...

I’m with you. That’s always seemed like the weakest link in the reasoning to me, just because supernovae seem like they have to be incredibly complicated, with many variables in play.