Ethan Siegel
A theoretical astrophysicist and science writer, host of popular podcast "Starts with a Bang!"
Ethan Siegel is a Ph.D. astrophysicist and author of "Starts with a Bang!" He is a science communicator, who professes physics and astronomy at various colleges. He has won numerous awards for science writing since 2008 for his blog, including the award for best science blog by the Institute of Physics. His two books "Treknology: The Science of Star Trek from Tricorders to Warp Drive" and "Beyond the Galaxy: How humanity looked beyond our Milky Way and discovered the entire Universe" are available for purchase at Amazon. Follow him on Twitter @startswithabang.
We can’t go back to the Big Bang, nor ahead to the heat death of the Universe. Nevertheless, here are today’s natural temperature extremes.
Somewhere out there in the Universe is the heaviest neutron star, and elsewhere lies the lightest black hole. Where’s the line between them?
Two very different ideas, wormholes and quantum entanglement, might be fundamentally related. What would “ER = EPR” mean for our Universe?
Even with quantum teleportation and the existence of entangled quantum states, faster-than-light communication still remains impossible.
Left to their own devices, yeast cells will consume all available resources and poison themselves to death. Is humanity smarter than that?
The zero-point energy of empty space is not zero. Even with all the physics we know, we have no idea how to calculate what it ought to be.
What kind of object will you form? What will its fate be? How long will a star live? Almost everything is determined by mass alone.
If stars don’t go supernova at first, they can get a second chance after becoming a white dwarf. But can their companions survive?
In our Solar System, even the two brightest planets frequently align in our skies. But only rarely is it spectacularly visible from Earth.
If you’re a massless particle, you must always move at light speed. If you have mass, you must go slower. So why aren’t any neutrinos slow?
Unless you confront your theory with what’s actually out there in the Universe, you’re playing in the sandbox, not engaging in science.
JWST’s revolutionary views arrive in high-resolution at infrared wavelengths. Without NASA’s Spitzer first, it wouldn’t have been possible.
Dark energy is one of the biggest mysteries in all the Universe. Is there some way to avoid “having to live with it?”
Protons and neutrons are held together by the strong force: with 3 colors and 3 anticolors. So why are there only 8 gluons, and not 9?
Nobel Laureate Roger Penrose, famed for his work on black holes, claims we’ve seen evidence from a prior Universe. Only, we haven’t.
An incredible composite image of Pandora’s Cluster, Abell 2744, simultaneously showcases both our impressive knowledge and vast ignorance.
The glorious sights that JWST keeps revealing are less than a millionth of the whole Universe. Just imagine what else is out there.
Since its observation discovery in the 1990s, dark energy has been one of science’s biggest mysteries. Could black holes be the cause?
Are quantum fields real, or are they simply calculational tools? These 3 experiments show that if energy is real, so are quantum fields.
Even if a balloon flies directly overhead, attempting to shoot it down with a conventional firearm is stupid, ineffective, and dangerous.
The secret ingredient is violence, and it just might indicate that “moonmoons” aren’t as uncommon as most astronomers think.
Generations ago, cosmologists asserted that the Universe might not just be the same in all directions, but at all times. But is that true?
A fascinating 90 minute podcast between Dr. Ivanna Escala and Ethan Siegel on Starts With A Bang!
From the earliest stages of the hot Big Bang (and even before) to our dark energy-dominated present, how and when did the Universe grow up?
The combination of charge conjugation, parity, and time-reversal symmetry is known as CPT. And it must never be broken. Ever.
If it weren’t for the intricate rules of quantum physics, we wouldn’t have formed neutral atoms “only” ~380,000 years after the Big Bang.
NASA has finally chosen which flagship mission, like Hubble and JWST, will launch in ~2040. Detecting alien life is now a reachable goal.
19 years ago, the Bullet Cluster provided an empirical proof for dark matter. Even today, modified gravity still can’t explain it.
In general relativity, white holes are just as mathematically plausible as black holes. Black holes are real; what about white holes?
Many people out there, including scientists, claim to have discovered a series of game-changing revolutions. Here’s why we don’t buy it.