‘I Was Sexually Harassed by My Professor’: After Years of Silent Struggle, Astronomer Sarah Ballard Tells Her Story – PEOPLE.com

Astronomy student Sarah Ballard was flattered starstruck, even when her famous professor,Geoff Marcy, began meeting her outside of class in the spring of 2005 to discuss new planets and galaxies.

It was exhilarating, says Ballard, then a 20-year-old at the University of California at Berkeley, and deeply affirming. He said I had promise to go really far.

But in the end, it was Marcy who went way too far.

Their conversations soon became sexual in nature, Ballard, now 33, says, with Marcy divulging details about his sex life and asking about her own experiences. Then, later that summer after giving Ballard a ride home, Marcy told me to relax and started rubbing the back of my neck, she says.

Ballard fled the car, but like so many women who experience sexual harassment, the blow to her self-esteem stayed with her.

I dont know of a single person, no matter how cruel the harassment or the assault, who doesnt feel some of that guilt and shame, says Ballard, and wonders, Could I have done something differently? Perhaps it was my fault?

Ballard struggled over whether to confront Marcy or tell school authorities. His support was critical to Ballard getting into graduate school, and she worried about potential backlash from the science community.

So when Marcys inexplicably cooled toward Ballard, she says she was both relieved and troubled.

It was clear that the experience had deeply affected her, says science writer Sarah Scoles, who interned with Ballard the following summer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and whom Ballard confided in about the incident.

She trusted (Marcy) professionallyhe had broken that trust and taken advantage of his power over both her and her career.

Ballard graduated from Berkeley in 2007 and went on to Harvard, where she earned aPh.D. in astronomy and astrophysics. Then, while attending a Women in Astronomy conference in 2011, another Berkeley student told her there were recent reports of harassment in the department and mentioned Marcys name.

Watch Sarah Ballard on the seriesPeople Features: Women Speak Out, available now, on the new People/Entertainment Weekly Network (PEN). Go topeople.com/PEN, or download the PEN app on your favorite device.

For the first time, I said aloud, That happened to me! says Ballard, who was determined not to let it happen to any more women.

I couldnt protect myself then, she adds, but I could protect women who are 20 today.

Ballard became one of four anonymous complainants in a school investigation of the renowned professor, which ended in 2015 with the university determining that Marcy had violated their sexual harassment policies.

We are well aware that any harassment of students, staff and faculty by members of our faculty represents an unacceptable breach of the academic or professional supervisory relationship, said a Berkeley spokesperson, an a recent statement issued to PEOPE.

Marcy was put on notice, but was not removed from his position at the school.

When I saw that I felt the beginning of what would be months of grief, Ballard recalls. It was my first realization that the academic system that I thought was so meritorious, that I wanted to actually spend my life within, was deeply unfair.I wouldnt receive any justice and he could go on and harass other women.

Frustrated and upset, the four women decided to go public with their story soon after, with Ballard using her real name in the media.

For more on Sarah Ballards story, check out this weeks issue, on newsstands Friday.

It was a gesture that said I wasnt afraid, she says.

The science community rallied in support of the women, with thousands signing a petition against sexual harassment, leading to Marcys resignation and a public letter of apology posted on his website, saying in part, While I do not agree with each complaint that was made, it is clear that my behavior was unwelcomed by some women. I take full responsibility and hold myself completely accountable for my actions and the impact they had.

Today, Ballard is living her dream as a postdoctoral fellow for exoplanetary science at M.I.T. in Boston, where she spends her days focused on planets orbiting the stars, and continues her fight against sexual harassment in the science community.

The more women come out saying, This happened to me, the more (other) women willthink, That validates my own experience. Perhaps I, too, will move forward and think about protecting other women, Ballard says.

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'I Was Sexually Harassed by My Professor': After Years of Silent Struggle, Astronomer Sarah Ballard Tells Her Story - PEOPLE.com

Five Princeton professors receive Simons Investigators awards – Princeton University

Five Princeton University professors have been selected to receive 2017 Simons Investigators awards, which are presented by the New York-based Simons Foundation to outstanding scientists nationwide engaged in mathematics, physics, astrophysics, theoretical computer science, mathematical modeling of living systems, and Math+X, which encourages novel collaborations between mathematics and other fields in science or engineering.

The awards provide $100,000 annually for an initial five years and can be renewed for an additional five years.

Igor Rodnianski, a professor of mathematics, was recognized as a "leading figure in the field of partial differential equations" who has "proven theorems concerning the full nonlinear dynamics of the Einstein equations, in both the weak and strong field regimes, and has obtained new results regarding gravitational radiation associated to black hole spacetimes."

Allan Sly, a professor of mathematics who joined the Princeton from the University of California-Berkeley last year, was cited for resolving "long-standing open problems on the computational complexity of phase transitions and on the dynamics of the Ising model."

Steven Gubser, a professor of physics, was cited for his "foundational work on the gauge-string duality and its applications to heavy-ion and condensed matter physics, including a gravitational dual of superconductivity and studies of bulk flows and quark-gluon plasmas." He also was noted for his work on "semi-classical strings in anti-de Sitter space."

Eve Ostriker, a professor of astrophysical sciences, was recognized for her "major contributions to our understanding of the role of the interstellar medium in star formation and galactic structure and evolution, with a focus on the role of turbulence and on the effects of energy returned by massive stars to the interstellar medium."

Amit Singer, a professor of mathematics and the Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics, was cited as "one of the leaders in the mathematical analysis of noisy data provided by cryo-EM."

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Five Princeton professors receive Simons Investigators awards - Princeton University

Astrophysics, Galaxy Clusters and the Key to the Universe – Hamilton College News

During the fall of 2016, Anya Nugent 18 began looking into researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) who were doing work in astrophysics or cosmology.

Berkeley Lab, where Nugent also worked last summer, is a member of the national lab system supported by the U.S Department of Energy, and conducts research across a vast range of scientific disciplines.

Technologies developed at Berkeley have generated thousands of jobs, and billions of dollars in revenue.

This summer, Nugent is participating inBerkeley Lab Undergraduate Research (BLUR) program to study galaxy clustering. After contacting Shirley Ho, the senior scientist at Berkeley Lab, Nugent was put in contact with Hos post-doc, Chamberlain and Einstein Fellow Zachary Slepian.

Slepian, Nugents mentor, and Nugent discussed several possible research projects to pursue over the summer, but eventually decided to study galaxy clustering as a way to learn more about dark energy and General Relativity. Though we know that dark energy and gravity affect how distances between objects change with time, we still do not completely understand their fundamental properties. By studying galaxy clustering, we can expand our knowledge of these topics, which is key to comprehending how our universe works, she said.

To measure galaxy clustering, Slepian and Nugent are using a three-point correlation function (3PCF), which examines triangles formed by galaxy triplets by measuring two triangle sides and the angle between them. Traditionally, the 3PCF has been too computationally complex to measure. However, Slepian discovered a new way of analyzing galaxy triplets, which, in turn, altered the scale of the function, thus making it less complex. A group at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) was able to make a code for this innovative algorithm, which will soon be used to analyze the results from the 3PCF and galaxy clustering.

Anya Nugent 18

Concentration: physics and Hispanic studies double major

Hometown: Orinda, Calif.

High School: Campolindo High School

Before the code can be used for scientific purposes, the team must implement an edge correction code and a method for weighting data correctly, which is Nugents part of the project. The edge correction code will adjust jagged astronomical survey boundaries, which normally would negatively affect the results.

The work Nugent is doing at BLUR will culminate with a paper and presentation at the end of the summer, but her research concerning the 3PCF will not end there. Once weve finished these codes, we can start running them on astronomical surveys and simulations so we can analyze the 3PCF and galaxy clustering. This is research I will be doing in the spring for my thesis, said Nugent.

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‘Dr Yash Pal Singh simplified science for the masses’ – Hindustan Times

Education should be based on real life experiences, observations and happenings, is a simple thought that renowned Indian scientist Dr Yash Pal Singh left behind, after his unfortunate demise on Tuesday.

A Padma Vibhushan recipient, who is a globally acclaimed physicist, scholar and an education reformer, died at the age of 90, on July 25, in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. The cause of death is unknown.

Across the expanse of his illustrious career, Pal has made significant contributions to the field of science and to the study of cosmic rays, astrophysics, high-energy physics. Prominent individuals from Pune share their grief on his demise.

His scientific contributions are unparalleled of course, but what sets him apart is his ability to communicate science and reach out to the masses. Through television and different mediums, he really simplified science and made it accessible to all. Such a contribution to the field of science and education is very rare. With his death, India has lost a great soul, saidDr Prabhakar Ingle, head, science communication, CSIR-NCL, Pune.

Former chairman of UGC, Arun Nigavekar, spoke of his encounter with Pal who held chairmanship of the UGC from 1986 to 1991. After he finished the chairmanship,I was made the member of UGC and since then we worked together in many committees.The most monumental work that he left behind, the effect of which would be quite lasting, is his report on renovation and rejuvenation of higher education in India submitted to the Ministry of Human Resource Development on June 24, 2009. He fought the landmark case and won, against fake private universities of Chhattisgarh. He did most of the ground work for the case, compiled data and developed the arguments for the case. This was just one contribution among many, and withhis demise we have lost a great human being, he said.

Further, expressing his grief and sharing his personal experience with the scholar, Nitin Karmalkar, vice chancellor of Savitribai Phule Pune University,responded, I had an opportunity to personally travel with him, and meet him, when he had come to inaugurate the electronic science department some 20-25 years ago. At that time, I was a faculty, and was in awe to find such a humble person in an internationally acclaimed scholar like him. Despite his exemplary credentials, he would humbly mix with children of all ages to explain to them the complexities of science in the simplest of ways. He was the pioneer of sensitising, simplifying and popularising scientific education for all. Indeed, India has lost a great mind and a scientific stalwart.

Dr Pal, was also on the advisory committee of Flame University, and the current vice chancellor of the varsity, Dr Devi Singh, expressed,I had the fortune to know him personally and work with him. He would always bring something new, something out-of-the-box to the table, every time. He had a phenomenal contribution to higher education, and is a very respected man around all our faculties and together we grieve this loss.

His last rites were conducted on Tuesday, at 3 pm.

BOX:

Yash Pal attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for his PhD

In 2000, received the Indira Gandhi Prize for Popularization of Science

In 2006, received the Meghnad Saha Medal

In 2009, he received the Kalinga Prize, awarded by UNESCO for the popularisation of science

Served as the Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi from 2007 to 2012

He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 2013

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Krishna Rajagopal named dean for digital learning – MIT News

Krishna Rajagopal, the William A.M. Burden Professor of Physics and former chair of the MIT faculty, has been named dean for digital learning, effective Sept. 1. This new position expands leadership roles for faculty within the Office of the Vice President for Open Learning, which recently launched the MIT Integrated Learning Initiative and the Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Laboratory.

As dean for digital learning, Rajagopal will lead efforts to empower MIT faculty to use digital technologies to augment and transform how they teach. He is charged with building and strengthening connections between academic departments and the Office of Vice President for Open Learning, to facilitate broad-based engagement and bottom-up change. Rajagopal will catalyze, promote, and disseminate faculty innovations in MIT residential education, and, he will continue to support the sharing of a broad range of MIT knowledge and perspectives with learners around the globe.

Within the Office of the Vice President for Open Learning, Residential Education, MITx, OpenCourseWare, and the Digital Learning Lab will report to Rajagopal under the leadership of Sanjay Sarma, vice president for open learning, who made the announcement today. Rajagopal will work with Sarma and Senior Associate Dean of Digital Learning Isaac Chuang on the offices strategy and organization. As a member of Academic Council, Rajagopal will provide advice and perspectives to MIT President L. Rafael Reif and the senior administration.

Krishna combines his stellar research career with a passion for improving teaching and learning and a remarkable ability to integrate diverse points of views into a unifying vision, Sarma says. In a time of significant changes in education, I am confident that Krishna will offer great guidance for our open learning initiatives. He will work to maintain and enhance MITs position as a leader in providing access to high-quality education around the world, and he will continue to improve teaching at MIT.

As chair of the MIT faculty, Rajagopal distinguished himself as a strong advocate for the faculty. He was known for his listening skills, inclusive style, and ability to help colleagues and departments optimize and achieve their goals, including those involving the development and launch of new educational pathways for MITs students.

Some of his accomplishments as former chair of the faculty include joining with Dennis Freeman, then dean of undergraduate education, to assemble a group of faculty from MITs five schools, which conducted an in-depth study of the role of algorithmic reasoning and computational thinking in the context of the education of MIT undergraduates. He was also responsible for the charging of the Faculty Policy Committee Sub-Committee on Sub-Term Subjects and the subsequent implementation of many of its recommendations; building a new faculty governance website; and leading efforts in the creation of MITs new Master of Applied Science (MASc) degree, an umbrella degree type introduced in fall 2016 for one-year professional masters degrees that include a capstone project.

Previously, Rajagopal served as associate head for education in the Department of Physics, where he stewarded the department's undergraduate and graduate educational programs and became known for his dedication to students. In that role, he facilitated and supported new MITx activities that improved the on-campus teaching of freshman physics and junior lab, as well as the first massive open online courses (MOOCs) on intermediate quantum mechanics and advanced quantum field theory.

I am excited about this new challenge, as I will be helping MIT faculty members take their passions for teaching and learning to new levels in ways that can have long-lasting impact across MIT and around the world, Rajagopal says. Our digital learning efforts already reach thousands of students in MIT classrooms and millions of learners around the world. What makes this an exciting time for education is that as these technologies, as well as research on how people learn, evolve, they are transforming how we teach today, and will do so in ways that we cannot yet see and must invent.

Since joining the MIT faculty in 1997, Rajagopal has produced a significant body of research in theoretical physics focused largely on how quarks ordinarily confined within protons and neutrons behave in extraordinary conditions such as the hot quark soup that filled the microseconds-old universe, conditions that provide a test bed for understanding how a complex world emerges from simple underlying laws. His work links nuclear and particle physics, condensed matter physics, astrophysics, and string theory.

Rajagopal is the author of about 100 papers that have been cited more than 16,000 times, and has mentored more than two dozen PhD students and postdocs. He was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society in 2004. He is a Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow and won the Everett Moore Baker Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 2011 and the Buechner Prize for Excellence in Teaching in 1999.

Rajagopal grew up in suburban Toronto; his family moved there from Munich when he was less than 1 year old. Influenced by an outstanding teacher who brought pioneering advances in recombinant DNA and molecular biology into his public high school biology class, Rajagopal arrived at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, planning to major in biology. His freshman physics class rekindled his earlier interest in physics, and he says he much appreciates the formative educational influences that shaped his own experience.

He graduated from Queens in 1988 and completed his PhD at Princeton University in 1993. After stints as a junior fellow at Harvard University and a Fairchild Fellow at Caltech he joined the MIT faculty in 1997. Rajagopal has spent one year each at the University of California at Berkeley and at CERN, the physics laboratory outside Geneva, Switzerland. He lives in Arlington, Massachusetts, with his wife and two sons.

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Seminar on Astronomy, Astrophysics held – The Hitavada

Source: The HitavadaDate: 25 Jul 2017 11:28:03

Staff Reporter,

Raipur,

Professor K P Singh, eminent scientist and X-ray Astronomer from Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Mumbai, explained that like visible radiation generally used for investigation of celestial bodies, X-ray also plays very important role in this work

Professor K P Singh, eminent scientist and X-ray Astronomer from Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) Mumbai and Professor Alok Chand Gupta from Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (Nainital) shared their views with students and faculty members of School of Studies in Physics and Astrophysics, Pt Ravishankar Shukla University (PRSU), on Monday, during a one day seminar on Astronomy and Astrophysics. Professor Singh explained that like visible radiation generally used for investigation of celestial bodies, X-ray also plays very important role in this work.

However, X-ray coming from space cannot reach to the Earth, as it is blocked by Earths atmosphere. Hence we need to design a special kind of telescope and install it on a satellite above the atmosphere. Indian astronomers have designed X-telescopes on-board ASTROSAT, this satellite was launched in 2015 by ISRO and now successfully working, he said.

There are many other telescopes and detectors on ASTROSAT. This is Indias first multi-wavelength astronomical mission capable of simultaneous observations in many electromagnetic bands. Hence it has got attention from the astronomers worldwide, he added. He also said that celestial objects like White dwarfs, Neutron stars, and Black holes have very intense gravitational field, hence they accrete matter from the companion.

Falling material can not fall directly to the Black hole, hence it starts spiraling around it and form an accretion disk, this disk gets heated to very high temperatures, which releases huge amount of energy in X-ray band. Hence X-ray telescope are important to study compact objects like White dwarfs, Neutron stars and Black holes, which are otherwise invisible or difficult to see in other electromagnetic radiation.

Professor Gupta from ARIES explained how an active galactic nucleus (AGN) is formed by accretion process on to a super massive black hole. He also discussed in detail about Blazar which is a special class of AGN. Students also interacted with Professor S.K. Pandey, Vice Chancellor of the University and famous Astrophysicist. Other participants includes: Head of Physics Department Professor N Brahme, Faculty members and students from Center for Basic Sciences.

Pt Ravishankar Shukla University Vice Chancellor Professor S K Pandey, who is also an astrophysicist, HoD Dr Namita Brahme and Director Dr N K Chakradhari were present on the occasion.

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Seminar on Astronomy, Astrophysics held - The Hitavada

Discovery of a rare quadruple gravitational lens candidate with Pan-STARRS – Phys.Org

July 25, 2017 Pan-STARRS image of the quadruple gravitational lens candidate. The four images of the quasar are marked A-D. The lensing galaxy is very faint and it was discovered only after careful analysis of the image, its position is marked with an x. Credit: United States Naval Observatory (USNO)

Astronomers from the United States Naval Observatory (USNO) in conjunction with colleagues from the University of California, Davis, and Rutgers University have discovered the first quadruple gravitational lens candidate within data from the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid

Response System (Pan-STARRS) using a combination of all-sky survey data from the USNO Robotic Astrometric Telescope (URAT) and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).

USNO graduate student George Nelson, who was performing a URAT variability study of the brightest quasars identified by USNO astronomers using WISE colors, discovered the lens while investigating the optical properties of a bright quasar sample. The paper describing this serendipitous discovery has been accepted for publication in the

Astrophysical Journal. A preprint of the paper may be found at arxiv.org/abs/1705.08359. A paper confirming the discovery by a separate team of astronomers using the Keck Cosmic Web Imager has been submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters. A preprint of this paper may be found at arxiv.org/abs/1707.05873.

Since the discovery of the first gravitationally lensed quasar in 1979, gravitational lenses have become powerful probes of astrophysics and cosmology. Because they require a very specific configuration between a background quasar (a bright, distant object powered by a supermassive black hole) and a foreground lensing galaxy, quadruply lensed quasars are especially rare. In fact, to date there are only about three-dozen such objects known over the entire sky.

Gravitational lenses are a manifestation of gravity's ability to bend light, which was predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity in 1915. Since then many experiments have been carried out to test this theory starting with Sir Arthur Eddington's observations of light bending during a solar eclipse in 1919. When a galaxy acts as a gravitational lens to a background quasar, the lensed quasar appears as dual or quadruple images, depending on the relative location of the lens and the source. Lenses are rare because they require that the galaxy and the quasar be located within a few arcseconds of each other on the sky.

Gravitational lenses are at the forefront of current research in cosmology and astrophysics. In astrophysics, they have been used to uncover the structure of massive galaxies, to study how supermassive black holes relate to their host galaxies, and to gain insight into quasar accretion disks as well as their black hole spin. In cosmology, they have contributed to measuring the distribution of dark matter around galaxies and the expansion history of the universe.

Future radio, X-ray, Hubble Space Telescope and adaptive optics imaging, as well as spectroscopic studies, are already planned to further the study of this lens and to contribute to fundamental research.

Explore further: New Type Ia supernova discovered using gravitational lensing

More information: Discovery of the first quadruple gravitationally lensed quasar candidate with Pan-STARRS. arXiv. arxiv.org/abs/1705.08359

Journal reference: Astrophysical Journal Letters arXiv

Provided by: United States Naval Observatory (USNO)

(Phys.org)Using gravitational lensing, an international team of astronomers has detected a new Type Ia supernova. The newly discovered lensed supernova was found behind the galaxy cluster known as MOO J1014+0038. The findings ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have found several examples of galaxies containing quasars, which act as gravitational lenses, amplifying and distorting images of galaxies aligned behind them.

Astronomers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Ecole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland have discovered the first known case of a distant galaxy being magnified by ...

Astronomers have just made a new measurement of the Hubble Constant, the rate at which the universe is expanding, and it doesn't quite line up with a different estimate of the same number. That discrepancy could hint at "new ...

A quasar acting as a gravitational lens has now been observed for the first time. This discovery, made by the EPFL's Laboratory of Astrophysics in cooperation with Caltech, represents an advance in the field, since it will ...

Mini-jets of material ejected from a central supermassive black hole appear to be the culprits behind faint radio wave emissions in 'radio-quiet' quasars. A study of gravitationally lensed images of four radio-quiet quasars ...

As NASA's Cassini spacecraft makes its unprecedented series of weekly dives between Saturn and its rings, scientists are findingso farthat the planet's magnetic field has no discernable tilt. This surprising observation, ...

About eighty-five percent of the matter in the universe is in the form of dark matter, whose nature remains a mystery. The rest of the matter in the universe is of the kind found in atoms. Astronomers studying the evolution ...

Life has found ways to overcome, and even thrive, in many extreme situationsfrom super saline pools to the high temperatures of hydrothermal vents. A new experiment has shown that the microgravity found in space is also ...

Astronomers have used an Australian radio telescope to observe molecular signatures from stars, gas and dust in our galaxy, which could lead to the detection of complex molecules that are precursors to life.

The death of a massive star in a distant galaxy 10 billion years ago created a rare superluminous supernova that astronomers say is one of the most distant ever discovered. The brilliant explosion, more than three times as ...

Astronomers have finally solved the mystery of peculiar signals coming from a nearby star, a story that sparked intense public speculation this week that perhaps, finally, alien life had been found.

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Discovery of a rare quadruple gravitational lens candidate with Pan-STARRS - Phys.Org

Famed Indian scientist and academic Yash Pal dies at 90; made significant contributions to study of cosmic rays and … – Firstpost

Renowned Indian scientist Yash Pal passed away at the age of 90 at his Noida house late on Monday night, according to media reports.

He was born in 1926 in Jhang, now in Pakistan, and was raised in Kaithal.

A recipient of Padma Bhushan in 1976, Pal studied physics from Punjab University. He later earned his PhD in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1958, India Today reported.

File image of Yash Pal. Screen grab from YouTube/ Rima Chibb

He was also featured in a popular science series, Turning Point, on Doordarshan in the 1980s. He was known for breaking down scientific concepts and making them easy to understand for the layman,reported Hindustan Times

A report in The Hindu states that he made significant contributions to the field of science and to the study of cosmic rays, high-energy physics, astrophysics and development, among others. He was also instrumental in establishing institutions that were key to India's space programme.

In 2009, he received the Kalinga Prize, awarded by UNESCO for the popularisation of science, the Indira Gandhi Prize for Popularization of Science in 2000 and The Meghnad Saha Medal in 2006.

In October 2011, he was awarded the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Award for excellence in public administration, academics and management.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also condoled his death.

With inputs from IANS

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Famed Indian scientist and academic Yash Pal dies at 90; made significant contributions to study of cosmic rays and ... - Firstpost

Spring City to host free solar eclipse meetings – Rheaheraldnews

The Town of Spring City announced Wednesday that Professor Brian Dennison, Ph.D., from the University of North Carolina-Asheville Department of Physics, will be holding two free community meetings to speak about the upcoming solar eclipse on Aug. 21.

The meetings will be held at the Spring City Municipal Building, located at 229 Front Street on Monday, July 31, at 6 p.m. and on Tuesday, Aug. 8, at 6 p.m.

Dennison will be speaking on what happens to cause an eclipse, what we can expect, why this is so unique, and why Spring Citys location is so special for this event. He will also be talking about the importance of eye protection. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Brian Dennison served as the endowed UNC-Asheville Glaxo-Wellcome Professor from 2004 to 2014. Previously, he was a professor of physics and the Director of the Institute for Particle Physics and Astrophysics at Virginia Tech.

He was a Senior Fulbright Scholar at the Onsala Space Observatory in Sweden, and he has worked as a radio astronomer at the E.O. Hulbert Center for Space Research of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC.

Dennisons fields of interest include astrophysics, radio astronomy and optical astronomy of the interstellar medium. He has received extensive funding primarily from the National Science Foundation in support of these efforts. He is Campus Director for the North Carolina Space Grant Program at UNCA. He teaches astronomy, astrophysics, and has recently taught cosmology and observational astronomy.

Dennisons research has utilized radio observatories throughout the U.S. and Europe. Most recently he participated in the development of Lookout Observatory on the campus of UNCA.

This facility is operated jointly by UNCA and the Astronomy Club of Asheville and is used extensively for student research, undergraduate instruction and outreach to the community.

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Spring City to host free solar eclipse meetings - Rheaheraldnews

The Sexism of Astrophysics and Why Its Women Have It Much Less Stellar – The Wire

Featured One would haveassumed thatgender-positive changes would take placeearlierthan in other circles among such highly educated scientists.

Jocelyn Bell. Source: YouTube

The gender ratio of women in editor-in-chief roles of major mainstream journals in astronomy and astrophysics is typically about 5-10 % these days. In the last 50 years of academic records, it is not difficult to find nowomen in such roles at any given time. The same ratio is just about 10-15 % when it comes to the number of keynote speakers, chairpersons of important conference sessions and distinguished award recipients in major conferences and meetings in astronomy/astrophysics.

On New Years Day in 2016, the Oxford University officially appointed a female vice-chancellor for the first time in its entire 921-year history. This goes to show how very few female vice-chancellors there really arein this world,especially when it comes to the top universities. In developing countries like India, recent surveys have shown that the typical gender ratio for female vice-chancellorships hovers around three. Although this situation is slightly better in developed nations, the gender gap in top academic roles remains abysmal. In fact, nation-wide surveys of this kindare almost non-existent in the developed worldas well.

Ironically, the severest levels of gender imbalance occur in the most educated circles among the brightestscholars in colleges, universities, boards of scientific journals and on the committees of prestigious academic prizes. And it is not difficult to note that the gender-balance situation at the top is much better in other areas of taxpayer-funded professional jobs, such like diplomacy, bureaucracy, police, the military and politics.

In June 2013, the astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell gave an enlightening talk at the European Parliament Office in Dublin, aboutthe unbalanced gender ratios and heavy gender gaps at thehigher levels of STEM subjects, and academia in general. Even the personal experience of such an excellent astrophysicist as Bell having beenoverlooked for the Nobel Prize in physics (for the discovery of pulsars) is another example of the prejudices female scientists face this one of winning sciences top honours. Her own personal experience and struggles against male-dominated astrophysics have encouraged more female students in the UK to pursue a career in the subject, so Bells involvement inhighlighting gender issues have brought the issuessomemainstream attention.

In my short career as an astrophysicist, I have had the privilege to attend various meetings, conferences, workshops, summer schools and events related to science and research in about 20 different countries. I have consistently noticed the conspicuouslack of female scientists onorganising committees, as committee chairs, keynote speakers, chairpersons in important conference sessions, among invited speakers and distinguished award recipients. The typical female gender ratio tends to be in the10-15% range. And it didnt matter what the specific branch of astrophysics was: matters were equally poor instellar physics, solar physics, solar system astronomy, galactic astronomy, cosmology andastroparticle physics.

However, there exists an extreme case, one domain ofastrophysics in which there have beeneven fewerfemale scientists.In the last50 years, fewer than 10% of the editor-in-chiefs of the top astronomy and astrophysics journals have been women. The recent historical group of editors-in-chief is a boys club. This travesty renders what enlightenment we have been able to claim as a species that grapples with the universes mysteries suspect.

Also read: Indian science journals produce March editions authored entirely by women

Some senior male scientists have given the excuse thatcore observational astronomy requires scientists to travel to remote, anddifficult-to-reachplaces like the peaks of Ladakh or Hawaii,the deserts at Chile andthe isolated Canary Islands for astronomical observations.They cite safety and the needs of womenas an issue. Some male colleagues have even casually said that women are not fit or ready for such challenges. But from whatever interactions I have had with my female colleagues, they are more than brave and happy to take on such adventures. It is only the male attitudes and their reluctance to give womena chance that are stopping them.

Similarly, some senior men in space agencies have prejudices when it comes to recruiting female astronaut candidates, citing petty excuses of compromised standards in health, fitness and the tough exercise regimen. Again, from whatever I have noticed, female students and researchers are usually quiteenthusiastic to take up such challenges. To be fair,this particular gender gap, among astronauts, is improving faster than it is among astronomers. There are more active female astronauts today thanthere have ever been.

Modern astrophysics projects (compared to other branches of pure science) today often require a a high level of computational expertise and make use of hi-tech supercomputing clusters forsolving research problems. Some international consortia require national andinternational supercomputing collaborations. There are times when I have noticed some senior male colleagues comparing womens programming skills to their driving skills, a decidedly immature argument that seeks to disparage the opportunities women have to be involved in these collaborations and to imply that they may not be good learners.

Such unfair attitudes have a direct effect in the recruitment and appointment of top astronomy jobs. Some older male scientists have alsomade crude remarks about a female speakers or chairpersons way of dressing when they have beenonstage in conferences, which is nothing short ofgross objectification and harassment. An unfortunate number ofwomen astronomers have had togo throughsuch experiences, and for along time.

Arecent group email sent tothe members of a Belgian university instructing female candidates to wear skirts and revealing necklines tobeautify their convocation ceremonytypifies the kind ofdark attitudes some senior men in academia possess, imposing their own illogical agendas on womens choice of attire. It stated: From an aesthetic point of view, we recommend the young ladies wear a dress or skirt, as well as a nice dcollet [a revealing neckline], and for the gentlemen, a suit. The root of all these issues originates from an inherent prejudice the patriarchy hasharboured against womens skills and talents. A bias of a similar nature persists with respect to the number of timesscientific papers written by women have been cited.

I remember an anecdote Bell shared in her talk:all the boys in her university class had beenhowling and jeeringat her because she was the only female student in their class. These boys had been genuinely confused aboutwhat a girl wasdoing in the men-only universe of astrophysics. But later, Bellwent on to become one of the greatest astronomers of our time.Most of the bestwomen astronomers will have a similar story to share(varying in degree and intensity, of course). Asking when such deep-rooted prejudices and restrictive mindsets will change in the context of appointments in mainstream science remains a legitimate question because the answers have not been forthcoming. One would have assumed thatgender-positive changes would take place earlierthan in other circles among such highly educated scientists.

Aswin Sekhar is an Indian astrophysicist working at the Centre for Earth Evolution andDynamics, Faculty of Mathematics andNatural Sciences, University of Oslo.

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Tagged as: astronomy, astrophysics, astrophysics journals, citations, female astronauts, harassment, Jocelyn Bell, Oxford University, programming skills, women in STEM

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The Sexism of Astrophysics and Why Its Women Have It Much Less Stellar - The Wire

Meet the Indian astrophysicists who discovered the Saraswati Supercluster – Economic Times

Early this week, social networking sites were abuzz with politicians and celebrities from West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee to Bollywood actor Sonam Kapoor congratulating a team of Indian astronomers and astrophysicists. Reason: They had discovered one of the largest known structures in the universe a supercluster of galaxies stretching across 600 million light years.

Perhaps never before had national pride been evoked in the recent past for such a landmark breakthrough. And thats encouraging for Somak Raychaudhury, director of the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy & Astrophysics (IUCAA) in Pune, the institution which, along with the Indian Institute of Science Education & Research and two other universities, spearheaded the project. It builds confidence in Indians when global scientific journals and newspapers recognise our achievements. And it is likely to translate into more parents sending their kids to take up science education, says Raychaudhury.

The Oxford and Cambridge educated Raychaudhury, who has held prestigious positions at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics among many, made the journey back to India in 2012 to take over at the helm of the physics department of Kolkatas Presidency University (from where he had graduated). Beyond that role, Raychaudhury was keen that Indian science and scientists make it to the big league. He was concerned that India, which has a young population, was not tapping the next generation of scientists at its universities.

In India, internationally competitive research occurs almost exclusively in the research institutes, whereas universities are becoming training centres for students. This is not true elsewhere in the world; universities teach but also conduct leading research. It is important for our young people to witness and participate in world-class research from a young age, Raychaudhury told ET Magazine from IUCCA.

Indias Space Odyssey The discovery of Saraswati is significant for Raychaudhury, who joined IUCCA as director two years back. This is an example of an Indian team making use of a publicly available data archive from an international facility (Sloan Digital Sky Survey and other US observatories), making a discovery, following it up with data proposed for and obtained in open competition using other international observatories (like the Chandra and XMM-Newton x-ray observatories in space).

Among the major challenges in working in this field in India is the lack of large-scale experimental facilities for scientists. The largest Indian telescopes are very limited compared to those available worldwide, and we have to compete globally to use these facilities. IUCAA is part of major global research collaborations such as the IndIGO Consortium, Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Thirty Meter Telescope project.

Joydeep Bagchi, lead author of the Saraswati Supercluster paper and associate professor at IUCAA, feels that the project has demonstrated the expertise of Indian researchers, particularly those at IUCAA. India has already become a world leader in the field of radio astronomy with the successful operation of the 100% indigenous Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope (GMRT) near Pune, which is currently the worlds largest and most powerful radio telescope in meter wavelength range. Moreover, with the highly successful Mars Orbital Mission, Indian space scientists have demonstrated to the world that they can execute extremely complex and precise space missions at much lower costs than advanced nations.

For Shishir Sankhyayan, co-author in the research paper, the main challenge was analysis of the data and refining it. While India has cutting edge facilities in major research institutes, improvement in the environment research and facilities in some of the universities is still required. His plans include exploring the Saraswati Supercluster in details and searching for more superclusters, if they exist, in our universe.

No surprise that the scientific community in India is excited over the discovery. Patrick Das Gupta, professor, department of physics & astrophysics, University of Delhi, reckons that this is significant for testing the big bang model. This supercluster is being seen in a state as it was about 4 billion years ago, since light has a finite speed.

Jasjit Singh Bagla, professor at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali, feels that the fact that the entire team is based in India makes this paper an important milestone in the countrys journey in astronomy. It demonstrates that we have the skills for an elaborate analysis required to establish the existence of the supercluster in a quantitative manner. India has a great, rich, and distinguished heritage in physics, astronomy and astrophysics.

The recent announcement of the discovery of the Saraswati Supercluster of galaxies continues this strong trend, says Australian-British astrophysicist Kevin A Pimbblet, who is currently based at the EA Milne Centre for Astrophysics in Hull, UK. The choice of an Indian name for the project Saraswati has been a hit. Several years ago, when we had identified this large serpentine structure of galaxies that we were sure was bigger than anything we had ever seen, we thought of it as a river of galaxies.

We also wanted to suggest an Indian name, Raychaudhury says. The metaphor is not new the Milky Way, after all, is often called a river of stars.

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NASA might privatize one of its great observatories Spaceflight Now – Spaceflight Now

Artists concept of the Spitzer Space Telescope seen against the infrared sky. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC)

Management of NASAs Spitzer Space Telescope could be turned over to an academic institution or private operator in 2019 once the space agencys funding for the observatory runs out, a senior NASA manager said this week.

Launched in August 2003 on a planned five-year mission, the infrared observatory is getting farther from Earth as it circles the sun, complicating communications with the telescope. But the mission continues to make observations, yielding discoveries about worlds around other stars, faraway galaxies that populated the early universe, and planets and asteroids within our own solar system.

NASA last year agreed to continue funding the Spitzer mission through early 2019, keeping the observatory active through the commissioning of the James Webb Space Telescope, a $10 billion flagship project that will represent perhaps the biggest leap in space astronomy since the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990.

Spitzer, which covers much of the same infrared wavelengths as JWST, could identify targets for follow-up observations by Webb. Parallel imaging of the same targets by Spitzer and JWST could also aid in calibration of the new telescope.

While Spitzer operations will be more challenging as the telescope flies greater distances from Earth, the spacecraft and instruments could remain functional after NASAs mission-end date in 2019.

Operated by NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory with engineering support from spacecraft-builder Lockheed Martin, Spitzer could be turned over to a private institution after NASAs support for the mission ends in 2019, according to Paul Hertz, director of the agencys astrophysics division.

We are certainly open to a partnership proposal from any U.S. institution that would like to operate Spitzer on non-NASA funding beyond the NASA-funded mission, and Ive heard there are people discussing this, Hertz said Wednesday in a meeting of NASAs Astrophysics Advisory Committee. I just want to make sure everyone knows that we would welcome such an inquiry, proposal, or discussion.

If an outside funding source is found and approved, Spitzer would be loaned to a private operator, but NASA would retain ownership and responsibility for liability, Hertz said.

The model closely follows the way NASA turned over control of the GALEX astronomy satellite in Earth orbit to Caltech, which used private funds to continue operating the mission once NASAs commitment ended. That agreement was the first of its type for a government-owned science probe.

We loan (it), and then they have to pay all the money it takes to operate it, and then at the end of the funded mission, we take it back and do safe disposal of the spacecraft, Hertz said.

A review of Spitzers scientific potential last year by a panel of independent researchers recommended NASA continue the mission into early 2019. But the reviewers concluded NASA should divert Spitzers funding to more worthwhile projects shortly after JWSTs launch.

Faced with a limited federal budget, NASA must balance the need to develop future, more capable missions with keeping older spacecraft operational. A similar senior review of NASAs operating astrophysics missions in 2014 recommended NASA end its support of Spitzer that year, but top NASA officials overruled the panel after Spitzer found ways to operate the mission for less money.

Theres certainly good science to be done (with Spitzer) that cant fit into our funding plan, Hertz said Wednesday.

NASAs budget request for Spitzer operations in fiscal year 2018, which begins Oct. 1, is for $11 million.

Spitzer was the last of four telescopes to launch in NASAs Great Observatories program, joining Hubble, the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

A Delta 2 rocket launched Spitzer from Cape Canaveral into an Earth-trailing orbit around the sun. The telescope circles the sun slightly slower than Earth, so Spitzer gets a little farther away each day. As of Saturday, the telescope was approximately 146 million miles (235 million kilometers) from Earth.

The range to Spitzer, and its closer proximity to the sun as viewed from Earth, makes communications with the observatory more difficult over time. Spitzer is also exposed to hotter temperatures as it gets farther from Earth because it must point its antenna at higher angles toward the sun to stay in contact with ground controllers.

One of Spitzers most recent accomplishments was its role in the discovery of seven Earth-sized planets around a star 40 light-years, or about 235 trillion miles (378 trillion kilometers) from Earth. The TRAPPIST-1 system, announced in February, holds the record for the most potentially habitable planets around a single star outside our solar system, scientists said.

Email the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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NASA might privatize one of its great observatories Spaceflight Now - Spaceflight Now

The Cosmos is One Big Particle Accelerator –"Paves the Way For a … – The Daily Galaxy (blog)

Physicists are capitalizing on a direct connection between the largest cosmic structures and the smallest known objects to use the universe as a "cosmological collider" and investigate new physics. The cosmos' tiniest particles and the distribution of matter across the vast universe occupy opposite ends of the scale spectrum, but they're not unrelated.

In a new study, published this week in the journal Physical Review Letters, astrophysicists argue the nature of the The researchers argue the cosmos is like one big particle accelerator. The study of the vast distribution of cosmic matter could offer new insights into the nature of quantum mechanical particles.

"Ongoing observations of cosmological microwave background and large scale structures have achieved impressive precision, from which valuable information about primordial density perturbations can be extracted," Yi Wang, a professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said in a news release.

The Standard Model of physics describes the behavior of all known particles, but researchers believe the large-scale structures of the universe could reveal modes of particle behavior beyond the Standard Model.

The three-dimensional map of galaxies throughout the cosmos and the leftover radiation from the Big Bang called the cosmic microwave background (CMB) are the largest structures in the universe that astrophysicists observe using telescopes. Subatomic elementary particles, on the other hand, are the smallest known objects in the universe that particle physicists study using particle colliders.

A team including Xingang Chen of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), Yi Wang from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and Zhong-Zhi Xianyu from the Center for Mathematical Sciences and Applications at Harvard University has used these extremes of size to probe fundamental physics in an innovative way. They have shown how the properties of the elementary particles in the Standard Model of particle physics may be inferred by studying the largest cosmic structures. This connection is made through a process called cosmic inflation.

Cosmic inflation is the most widely accepted theoretical scenario to explain what preceded the Big Bang. This theory predicts that the size of the universe expanded at an extraordinary and accelerating rate in the first fleeting fraction of a second after the universe was created. It was a highly energetic event, during which all particles in the universe were created and interacted with each other. This is similar to the environment physicists try to create in ground-based colliders, with the exception that its energy can be 10 billion times larger than any colliders that humans can build.

Inflation was followed by the Big Bang, where the cosmos continued to expand for more than 13 billion years, but the expansion rate slowed down with time. Microscopic structures created in these energetic events got stretched across the universe, resulting in regions that were slightly denser or less dense than surrounding areas in the otherwise very homogeneous early universe. As the universe evolved, the denser regions attracted more and more matter due to gravity. Eventually, the initial microscopic structures seeded the large-scale structure of our universe, and determined the locations of galaxies throughout the cosmos.

In ground-based colliders, physicists and engineers build instruments to read the results of the colliding events. The question is then how we should read the results of the cosmological collider.

"Several years ago, Yi Wang and I, Nima Arkani-Hamed and Juan Maldacena from the Institute of Advanced Study, and several other groups, discovered that the results of this cosmological collider are encoded in the statistics of the initial microscopic structures. As time passes, they become imprinted in the statistics of the spatial distribution of the universe's contents, such as galaxies and the cosmic microwave background, that we observe today," said Xingang Chen. "By studying the properties of these statistics we can learn more about the properties of elementary particles."

As in ground-based colliders, before scientists explore new physics, it is crucial to understand the behavior of known fundamental particles in this cosmological collider, as described by the Standard Model of particle physics.

"The relative number of fundamental particles that have different masses what we call the mass spectrum in the Standard Model has a special pattern, which can be viewed as the fingerprint of the Standard Model," explained Zhong-Zhi Xiangyu. "However, this fingerprint changes as the environment changes, and would have looked very different at the time of inflation from how it looks now."

The team showed what the mass spectrum of the Standard Model would look like for different inflation models. They also showed how this mass spectrum is imprinted in the appearance of the large-scale structure of our universe. This study paves the way for the future discovery of new physics.

"The ongoing observations of the CMB and large-scale structure have achieved impressive precision from which valuable information about the initial microscopic structures can be extracted," said Yi Wang. "In this cosmological collider, any observational signal that deviates from that expected for particles in the Standard Model would then be a sign of new physics."

The current research is only a small step towards an exciting era when precision cosmology will show its full power.

"If we are lucky enough to observe these imprints, we would not only be able to study particle physics and fundamental principles in the early universe, but also better understand cosmic inflation itself. In this regard, there are still a whole universe of mysteries to be explored," said Xianyu.

This research is detailed in a paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters on June 29, 2017, and the preprint is available online.

The Daily Galaxy via and Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and UPI

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Physics in a Cup of Cocoa | The East Hampton Star – East Hampton Star

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry Neil deGrasse Tyson W.W. Norton, $18.95

If this were a book review for people in a hurry, Id suggest: Read this book (1) because its a conduit to the cosmos, (2) because youll become hungry for more, and (3) so that you can join the club!

If youre not in a hurry, stay tuned.

In Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, Neil deGrasse Tyson writes a vivid and virtuosic opening chapter, The Greatest Story Ever Told, that is a tour dhorizon (pun intended) of those events that unfolded following the origin of our universe.

Explaining Newton, gravitation, Einstein, general relativity, gravitational waves, nucleosynthesis, planetary science, galaxy formation, stellar evolution, cosmic microwave background, dark energy, dark matter, and many other matters in a slim volume, with easy-to-assimilate, seasoned, charming prose, is not a cakewalk. And Dr. Tyson gives you the whole enchilada, tortilla, petits fours, Linzer torte, and bagel. He persuades you to suspend your disbelief and wins you over as he eagerly inspires you to wish for more. He has heft and bandwidth.

Dr. Tysons description of the events following the Big Bang includes the story of the leftover light from a dazzling, sizzling early universe. And, he says, studying the patterns in the cosmic microwave background is like performing some sort of cosmic phrenology, as we analyze the skull bumps of the infant universe.

Hollywood science-fiction epics may portray galaxies and space as romantic and glamorous. Nobody doesnt like intergalactic space, Dr. Tyson seems to agree, but it can be hazardous to your health if you choose to go there. He points out that you would freeze to death, your blood cells would burst, and youd be shot full of very high-energy cosmic radiation nuclear particles of matter that traverse interstellar and intergalactic space after being ejected by distant exploding stars.

I was not sure why I loved this book so much: because it was so well written, or because it reminded me of my passion for astrophysics. So I asked a very intelligent good friend a successful businessman and enthusiastic science aficionado for his laymans opinion. He wrote:

For the novice, this book serves as a fascinating and intensive introduction. It will also encourage him or her to read more on astrophysics . . . and marvel at the way in which Tyson organizes and presents his material. His chapter on Newtons and Einsteins theories of gravity, juxtaposed with the current concepts of the gravitational effects of dark matter and dark energy, is extraordinary.

I completely agree. Dr. Tyson has a wonderful way with words. So dark matter is our frenemy. We have no clue what it is. . . . But we desperately need it . . . to arrive at an accurate description of the universe.

You cant see it (hence dark), but you can infer the effects of dark matter on galaxies, making them appear unreasonably! as if they resembled a solid disc, like the wheel on your car that rotates on its axle. (In our solar system, however, planets revolve around the sun at different speeds that depend on their solar distances.) Thus, dark matter is an attractive force gluing a galaxys collection of stars together.

This is unlike dark energy, which is a repulsive force acting, so to speak, as if it were negative gravity and, as Dr. Tyson puts it, that it will ultimately win the tug of war, as it forces the cosmic expansion to accelerate exponentially into the future.

In other words, dark matter is attractive (some might say feminine) and dark energy is repulsive (some might say masculine), and together they invisibly make up about 95 percent of whats out there. Only some 5 percent of the universes total mass energy is visible to us. Was Buckminster Fuller prophetic when he said the greatest discovery of the 20th century was that the invisible is more important than the visible?

The matter we have come to love in the universe, Dr. Tyson says, is only a light frosting on the cosmic cake, modest buoys afloat in a vast cosmic ocean of something that looks like nothing.

The author mentions Einsteins problems with Hitler, who disparaged theoretical physics and general relativity as Jewish science and thus inferior to Aryan science because it was experimental. In fact, Hitler loathed Einstein so much that he wanted him assassinated, and organized a hundred authors to write a book against Einsteins ideas. Dr. Tyson paraphrases Einstein, who said about this book of negative propaganda that if he [Einstein] were wrong, then only one [author] would have been enough.

In discussing the universality of physical laws, the author humorously relates how he ordered a hot cocoa with whipped cream but was disappointed to see no trace of the topping. The waiter said it had sunk to the bottom, but Dr. Tyson pointed out that since whipped cream has a low density it should have been floating on the top, and that either they forgot to put it in or the laws of physics were different in this restaurant near Caltech. When the waiter reluctantly brought the (forgotten) dollop for the hot cocoa, it floated thus exemplifying that the laws of physics are universal. Of course, one example is not proof. (Lets hope the waiter got a good tip and became a physicist.)

Dr. Tysons book is justifiably at the top of the New York Times nonfiction best-seller list. Hes an authoritative source of clear ideas about our universe and writes in stylistic, eloquent prose without mathematics. This in itself is quite an unusual feat considering the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in describing the natural sciences, as the Nobel-winning physicist Eugene Wigner said, describing an extraordinary phenomenon bordering on the mysterious. Just like the universe.

Dr. Tyson also has a special way with children. At a recent standing-room-only Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate on De-Extinction at the American Museum of Natural History, he came forward from the podium and sat down at the edge of the stage, long legs dangling down to audience level, to listen to an adorable 9-year-old who had a very intelligent question for him. She wore an extremely colorful and elegant combination of eye-catching attire. Neil lifted her gently onto the stage so the multitudes could see her beguiling individuality. The audience was thrilled.

So hes a really nice guy in addition to writing a really good book.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is the director of the Hayden Planetarium and the host of the radio and TV show StarTalk. He lives in New York City and East Hampton.

Stephen Rosen, an astrophysicist who lives in East Hampton, will give a talk, Albert Einstein: Rock Star, at the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton on Aug. 10 at 5:30 p.m.

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Study determines microscopic water bears will be Earth’s last survivors – Smithsonian Insider (blog)

ByMegan Watzke

The worlds most indestructible species, the tardigrade, an eight-legged micro-animal, also known as the water bear, will survive until the Sun dies, according to a new Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Oxford University collaboration.

The worlds most indestructible species, the tardigrade, an eight-legged micro-animal, also known as the water bear, will survive until the Sun dies, according to a new Harvard-Smithsonian Center forAstrophysics and Oxford University collaboration.

The new study published in Scientific Reports, has shown that the tiny creatures will survive the risk of extinction from all astrophysical catastrophes, and be around for at least 10 billion yearsfar longer than the human race.

Although much attention has been given to the cataclysmic impact that an astrophysical event would have on human life, very little has been published around what it would take to kill the tardigrade, and wipe out life on this planet. The research implies that life on Earth in general, will extend as long as the Sun keeps shining. It also reveals that once life emerges, it is surprisingly resilient and difficult to destroy, opening the possibility of life on other planets.

Tardigrades are the toughest, most resilient form of life on earth, able to survive for up to 30 years without food or water, and endure temperature extremes of up to 150 degrees Celsius, the deep sea and even the frozen vacuum of space. The water-dwelling micro animal can live for up to 60 years, and grow to a maximum size of 0.5 mm, best seen under a microscope.

Researchers from the Universities of Oxford and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, have found that these life forms will likely survive all astrophysical calamities, such as an asteroid, since they will never be strong enough to boil off the worlds oceans.

Three potential events were considered as part of the research, including; large asteroid impact, and exploding stars in the form of supernovas or gamma-ray bursts.

Asteroids: There are only a dozen known asteroids and dwarf planets with enough mass to boil the oceans, these include Vesta and Pluto, however none of these objects will intersect the Earths orbit and pose no threat to tardigrades.

Supernova:In order to boil the oceans an exploding star would need to be 0.14 light-years away. The closest star to the Sun is four light years away and the probability of a massive star exploding close enough to Earth to kill all forms of life on it, within the Suns lifetime, is negligible.

Gamma-Ray bursts:Gamma-ray bursts are brighter and rarer than supernovae. Much like supernovas, gamma-ray bursts are too far away from earth to be considered a viable threat. To be able to boil the worlds oceans the burst would need to be no more than 40 light-years away, and the likelihood of a burst occurring so close is again, minor.

Without our technology protecting us, humans are a very sensitive species. Subtle changes in our environment impact us dramatically. There are many more resilient species on earth. Life on this planet can continue long after humans are gone, says Rafael Alves Batista, co-author and post-doctoral research associate in the Department of Physics at Oxford University. Tardigrades are as close to indestructible as it gets on Earth, but it is possible that there are other resilient species examples elsewhere in the universe. In this context there is a real case for looking for life on Mars and in other areas of the solar system in general. If tardigrades are Earths most resilient species, who knows what else is out there.

David Sloan, co-author and post-doctoral research associate in the Department of Physics at Oxford University, said: To our surprise we found that although nearby supernovae or large asteroid impacts would be catastrophic for people, tardigrades could be unaffected. Therefore it seems that life, once it gets going, is hard to wipe out entirely. Huge numbers of species, or even entire genera may become extinct, but life as a whole will go on.

In highlighting the resilience of life in general, the research broadens the scope of life beyond Earth, within and outside of this solar system. Abraham Loeb, co-author and chair of the Astronomy Department at Harvard University, said: It is difficult to eliminate all forms of life from a habitable planet. Organisms with similar tolerances to radiation and temperature as tardigrades could survive long-term below the surface in these conditions. The subsurface oceans that are believed to exist on Europa and Enceladus, would have conditions similar to the deep oceans of Earth where tardigrades are found, volcanic vents providing heat in an environment devoid of light. The discovery of extremophiles in such locations would be a significant step forward in bracketing the range of conditions for life to exist on planets around other stars.

A paper detailing this work appeared on July 14, 2017 in Scientific Reports, an open, online journal from the publishers of Nature.

Tags: asteroids, astronomy, astrophysics, extinction, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

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Study determines microscopic water bears will be Earth's last survivors - Smithsonian Insider (blog)

Meet the 20-year-old astrophysics student with Asperger’s hoping to be a Tory councillor – Gazette Live

Asperger's will not stop Sam Linley in his bid to become Stocktons youngest councillor.

The 20-year-old astrophysics student was diagnosed 10 years ago after tell-tale signs of the disability were spotted by his primary school teacher.

But now Sam is looking to fight the conditions stereotypes and represent his home town as the Conservative candidate in Thursdays Billingham North by-election.

Its something that youre born with. You cant change it. I have it for life, said Sam.

Sometimes social interaction is a problem. But I think I have come on a long way.

I have come from a shy kid to being able to just go up to a door not knowing whos behind it and strike up a conversation.

Sam, who aced his GCSE maths with an A* aged just 14 before going on to study at the University of York, said his disability will provide a new perspective to the council.

We need a broad church on the council. We need people from all parts of society.

When debates come up on provisions for disabled people its good to have people who know about them first hand rather than people who dont really understand the issues.

And in the traditional Labour stronghold of Billingham, he thinks hes got a good chance of winning with a back to basics campaign.

The keen violin player said: Originally when I came into it, I was thinking theres no chance.

If you had told me that we would be in with a serious chance I would have laughed. I would have laughed in your face.

But the response I am getting on the doorstep is positive. Im getting my name out there. People know who I am.

Sam said he wants to be a friendly face focused on hot-topics such as litter and dog fouling.

He also wants a fairer deal for Billingham: I have lived in Billingham all my life. Its a lovely place to live.

Its given me a lot over the 20 years I have lived here and I want to give back to it.

I am just fighting for more money for Billingham. A lot of residents see Stockton getting money but Billingham just left the scraps.

Labours Paul Weston is looking to defend the Billingham North seat following the resignation of Stephen Parry in June.

Independent Jennifer Apedaile, Mark Burdon of the North East Party, and David Minchella of the Liberal Democrats will also contest the seat.

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Neil deGrasse Tyson: fighting science denial starts with people, not … – The Guardian

Tyson is in Australia to promote his new book, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. Photograph: Desiree Navarro/WireImage

Albert Einstein has been called many things: a genius, a pioneer, a Nobel prize winner. Neil deGrasse Tyson just calls him a badass.

I think it fits, right? Its not a stretch, he tells Guardian Australia before his appearance in Melbourne on Saturday night. The dudes a badass.

This description of the father of modern physics is one of many notable turns of phrase in Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, the latest book from the astrophysicist and host of the StarTalk podcast. He is currently touring Australia with Think Inc to promote the book and talk about the science of the universe, with shows in Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Sydney.

The book has had an extraordinary global reception, placing in the top five of the New York Times bestseller list for 10 weeks. Its success reflects a broader appetite around the world for science told with passion and conviction, outside of high school textbooks.

Tyson stresses, though, that if youre not in a hurry you really shouldnt buy it.

If youve found time to read other books on astrophysics, youre not in a hurry, he says. Put this book down and read the other stuff. Im very serious about this: dont buy the book if youre not in a hurry.

The book is not quite astrophysics for dummies; while it is simplified, it is not simple. It is more a collection of the best and most thrilling moments; astrophysics greatest hits.

Its astrophysics handpicked for the most mind-blowing things that exist in the universe, Tyson says.

It is also the first time Tyson has recorded an audiobook; those in a hurry, after all, dont always have time to sit down and read. One particular benefit of this, he says, is to make the book available for those stuck in traffic in Los Angeles and also for those stuck in traffic in Australia, a situation he nevertheless finds highly improbable.

Why there is traffic in Australia, I have no idea, he says. Hardly anybody lives here. I dont know what the hells wrong, yall got to figure that one out.

Within a 30km radius of where I live are more people than the country of Australia. And you guys have traffic. Maybe its just an inescapable law of the universe.

Tysons mission as a science educator is not without obstacles. In Australia and around the world, the denial of scientific truth is very real, sometimes at the very highest levels of government. But how do you fight and challenge these kind of ideas? Tyson has a different view to some: the focus shouldnt be on the politicians, he says, but on the people themselves.

I dont concern myself much with politicians, he says. In an elected democracy, they represent an electorate. So if an electorate votes for somebody who denies what science is and how it works, then the issue is not with the politician but with the electorate.

Im an educator and I feel a certain duty to educate the public so that, when they vote, their vote can be as informed as it possibly can, with whatever political leanings they might have. Thats what makes the richness of a diverse political system.

While the descriptions of black holes and anti-matter Tyson sets out in his book can sometimes sound like science fiction, he stresses that many of the ideas in the genre reflect the science of the real world.

I dont turn to sci-fi in the way most people do, he says. Most people do it to escape. For me, just [by] doing my job Im escaping. The universe itself is a form of escapism.

Warped space, black holes, wormholes: all of this comes from us.

The near future of astrophysics promises to be particularly exciting: like science, it is driven by data, and for astrophysics that often involves space missions to gather information from the distant cosmos.

Tyson says that the understanding of dark matter may be one of the key developments over the next 10 years. And there is, of course, the possibility of finding life on another planet.

Could the world handle that?

If you had some philosophy that precluded life from existing elsewhere and then we find it, youre probably not going to say, OK, were wrong, everything we taught is wrong, everything we preach is wrong, lets close up shop, Tyson says.

What is more likely is that it will simply be absorbed into our understanding of the universe.

He recalls the aphorism that every great truth passes through three phases: First, they say its not true. Second, they say it conflicts with the Bible. Third, they say theyve known it all along.

Neil deGrasse Tyson: A Cosmic Perspective is on in Perth on 22 July, Brisbane on 23 July and Sydney on 29 July

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Neil deGrasse Tyson: fighting science denial starts with people, not ... - The Guardian

Class of 2017: Honours physics grad explores world’s mysteries from the microscopic to the massive – UCalgary News

Physics seeks to explain and explore the mysteries of the universe. Jacqueline Williams, recent graduate and this years Lieutenant Governors Gold Medal and Governor Generals Silver Medallion recipient, embraced the many facets of the discipline by exploring physics itself throughout her jam-packed undergraduate career.

From her first year of university, Williams has tried everything from chemical physics to biophysics, nuclear physics, and astrophysics.

I really didnt know that there were so many different areas of physics, says Williams. I think a lot of my peers went into physics knowing what areas of physics they were interested in. For me, I wanted to explore what was there and see what I ended up learning. Its been a lot of fun."

Though the new alumna graduated in June with a BSc(Hon) in astrophysics, she says her days of exploring physics are nowhere near over.

The questions that physicists explore are really interesting. Even for non-scientists, there just seems to be this growing, fundamental curiosity about a lot of areas of physics, especially astrophysics and cosmology," she says. "I still dont even know what area is really best for me because Ive done so much exploring and theres so much left to look into.

Taking a chance leads to new personal passion

Williams' astrophysics degree took a somewhat unusual turn right from the beginning. In her first year, she took a required computer science course for multidisciplinary studies that focused on the Python programming language.

I was terrified going into it because I didnt know anything about coding. I hadnt done any coding at all before I got into first year, so I didnt know if I was going to be able to do it, she says.

She found herself catching on quickly, and enjoying the course. When the opportunity to do summer research involving programming came up, Williams jumped at the chance. Even though I knew nothing about web-based coding languages at all I thought Id try it out.

She started working with senior instructor Jason Donev from the Department of Physics and Astronomy for the next two summers, doing data visualization work for energyeducation.ca, teaching herself HTML and Javascript along the way.

The site, Williams says, is a resource for university students and the public to learn about energy issues. She explains, Its kind of like Wikipedia, but the information has all been checked by UCalgary. It has replaced textbooks for some courses, both at this university and several other institutions.

A rounded education from the massive to the microscopic

With an added passion in hand, Williams continued to take every research opportunity she could. The opportunity to continue doing coding work, she says, was an added appeal to her astrophysics research with professor Denis Leahy, which had her making a modelling program for supernova remnant evolution.

Dr. Leahy had already written a Mathcad program that put together several equations in the literature describing how supernova remnants evolve over time, she explains. I took the work hed already done and put it in a more user-friendly Python program where users can put in parameters about the supernova remnant and see how its evolving over time and, for example, what its radius might be or at what velocity its expanding at a certain given point in time.

That work, for which Williams had received an Undergraduate Student Research Award from NSERC, was published in The Astronomical Journal in May 2017, with Williams listed as the second author.

Testing her skills out yet again, Williams decided to try her hand at biophysics for her honours thesis in her last year. Her supervisor for the project was Pina Colarusso, director at the Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases'Live Cell Imaging (LCI) Resource Laboratory.

This work saw her focus shift from studying massive supernovas to helping develop super-resolution microscopy techniques to study Weibel-Palade bodies, the storage granules of the endothelial cells that form the inner lining of the blood vessels and heart.

'It was totally different from anything Id done before'

I liked the idea of doing something that had a bit more lab work, she says. A lot of what I had been doing was coding, so it was more theoretical. Being able to do work at the lab was a great opportunity because it was totally different from anything Id done before.

Surprisingly, the work Williams had done in her astrophysics coursework tied in quite well to the microscopy research at the LCI. Microscopy has a lot of image processing involved. Astrophysics also has a lot of image processing and image analysis. Youre using similar sorts of software. My focus was on implementing the technique and exploring how it could be used to get greater detail in these images than what was previously possible with optical light microscopy.

However, she says, It was a little bit further outside my comfort zone. I thought it was really good to push myself, try doing something different, and see if that was something I would enjoy even more.

Although Williams was deeply immersed in her research, she found time to try something completely different altogether. I sang in the choir here, which you can actually take as a course! I had a lot of fun doing that the choir here sings everything from Beethoven to Adele. Its members are all sorts of people from different faculties. I had a couple other friends in there too, says Williams, who also plays violin. It can be kind of hard to fit in your hobbies during your degree but I like to do it for a break.

'Great community' and research opportunities helped open doors

While her undergraduate studies have been diverse and very busy, Williams graduated earning two of Canadas top academic honours.

She credits her supportive professors, a great community of fellow students, and her family with helping her along the way. The born-and-raised Calgarian says she felt lucky to have such a great university to attend in her hometown.

I never really felt the need to leave and go somewhere else because the programs here are already so good. I was very lucky to get all the research opportunities from the first year onward. I definitely got a lot of encouragement, and when youre working closer with a supervisor or professor you feel like youve got support going through the program, and helps you feel like youre more involved with the department. It was great to get those opportunities.

After taking some well-earned time, Williams plans to fine-tune her academic and career goals.

I want to get a bit of perspective. Its a bit of an open book right now, this upcoming year and after that. But Im excited to see what I end up doing.

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Class of 2017: Honours physics grad explores world's mysteries from the microscopic to the massive - UCalgary News

Scientists reveal new connections between small particles and the … – Phys.Org

July 19, 2017 The cosmos can be considered as a collider for human to access the results of particle physics experiments at ultimate high energies. Credit: Department of Physics, HKUST

Our observable universe is the largest object that physicists study: It spans a diameter of almost 100 billion light years. The density correlations in our universe, for example, correlations between numbers of galaxies at different parts of the universe, indicate that our vast universe has originated from a stage of cosmic inflation.

On the other hand, elementary particles are the smallest object that physicists study. A particle physics Standard Model (SM) was established 50 years ago, describing all known particles and their interactions.

Are density distributions of the vast universe and the nature of smallest particles related? In a recent research, scientists from HKUST and Harvard University revealed the connection between those two aspects, and argued that our universe could be used as a particle physics "collider" to study the high energy particle physics. Their findings mark the first step of cosmological collider phenomenology and pave the way for future discovery of new physics unknown yet to mankind.

The research was published in the journal Physical Review Letters on June 29, 2017 and the preprint is available online.

"Ongoing observations of cosmological microwave background and large scale structures have achieved impressive precision, from which valuable information about primordial density perturbations can be extracted, " said Yi Wang, a co-author of the paper and an assistant professor at HKUST's department of physics. "A careful study of this SM background would be the prerequisite for using the cosmological collider to explore any new physics, and any observational signal that deviates from this background would then be a sign of physics beyond the SM."

The team carried out a two-step task to work out the background of the SM model. The first step was to work out the SM spectrum during inflation, which turned out to be dramatically different from that obtained from the particle physics calculation in flat space. The second one was to figure out how the SM fields entered the cosmological density correlation functions.

"Just like the line pattern of the light you see when observing a mercury lamp through a spectrometer, the mass distribution of the fundamental particles in SM also presents a special pattern, or a 'mass spectrum', which can be viewed as the fingerprint of SM," explained Zhong-Zhi Xianyu, a co-author and physicist at Center for Mathematical Sciences and Applications in Harvard University, "However, this fingerprint is subject to change if we change the ambient conditions. Just like the light spectrum changes when applying strong magnetic field to the lamp, the spectrum of the SM particles turns out to be very different at the time of inflation from it is now due to the inflationary background." The team carefully examined all effects from inflation and showed how the mass spectrum of SM would look like for different inflation models.

"Through inflation, the spectrum of elementary particles is encoded in the statistics of the distribution of the contents of the universe, such as the galaxies and cosmic microwave background, that we observe today", explains Xingang Chen, a co-author and scientist in the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "This is the connection between the smallest and largest."

Many problems along this direction remain to be explored. "In our minimal setup, the Standard Model particles interact with the inflaton (the driving force of inflation) rather weakly. But if some new particles can mediate stronger interactions between these two sectors, we would expect to observe a stronger signal of new physics," said Wang. "The cosmological collider is an ideal arena for new physics beyond SM."

Explore further: Gravity may have saved the universe after the Big Bang, say researchers

More information: Xingang Chen et al, Standard Model Background of the Cosmological Collider, Physical Review Letters (2017). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.261302 , On Arxiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.06597

Journal reference: Physical Review Letters

Provided by: Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

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Scientists reveal new connections between small particles and the ... - Phys.Org

Neil deGrasse Tyson Wiki: Family, Career, Quotes, & Facts about the Astrophysicist – Earn The Necklace

American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson went on Celebrity Family Feud and won $25,000 with his family, and it comes as no surprise as they all clearly share the genius gene. The episode isnt set to air until next week, but it was so predictable that ABC already released the clip of their win. Want to learn more about the man behind Netflixs The Inexplicable Universe and Cosmos? Then check out our Neil deGrasse Tyson wiki!

Neil deGrasse Tysons age is 58, and he was born and raised in New York City. He attended the Bronx High School of Science and went to earn his BA in Physics at Harvard, and then his PhD in Astrophysics from Columbia. Now, he is an author and science communicator dealing with topics like star formation, exploding stars, dwarf galaxies, and the structure of our Milky Way.

When he was nine years old, Tyson began to develop an interest in astronomy after a trip to the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Little did he know that he would someday become its director. In 1994, hejoined the planetarium as a staff scientist. His research involved issues relating to galactic structure and evolution. In 1995, he became the acting director, and one year later secured the position as director. For the next 10 years, he wrote monthly essays for Natural History magazine, and in 2000, he wrote an autobiography. Neil deGrasse Tysons books include Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, Welcome to the Universe: An Astrophysical Tour, StarTalk: The Book, Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution, Just Visiting this Planet, and more. He produced 13 research publications, and has made numerous major media appearances. Neil deGrasse Tysons net worth is an estimated $2.0 million.

Neil deGrasse Tysons wife is Alice Young, whom he wed in 1988. They live in Lower Manhattan with their two children. The couple met while Tyson was in a physics class at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a former IT Manager with Bloomberg Financial Markets. Alice and Neil deGrasse Tysons kids are Miranda, and Travis. Miranda was named after the smallest of Uranus five major moons.

Known for his achievements as a scientist, Neil deGrasse Tysons quotes have become widely known among academics and fans of all things space and exploration. Here are some of his most famous quotes.

Check out the video below to watch Neil deGrasse Tysons family answer some fun questions on Celebrity Family Feud!

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Neil deGrasse Tyson Wiki: Family, Career, Quotes, & Facts about the Astrophysicist - Earn The Necklace