“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.”

Albert Einstein

Forty years after the first moon launch we now live in a society that seems bent on paddling backward into the flat earth dark ages. I certainly don’t have all the answers but the first step in learning the secrets of the universe is letting go of childish traditions that conflict with everyday observation.

One of my favorite teachers of all time told a true story in general astronomy in college, Professor Barnhart. While I’m not as good of a story teller as he, I will try to repeat it the best that I can. In early world wars, without the aid of computers, it was nearly impossible to calculate star positioning using the actual model of the universe (the earth rotates around the sun in an elliptical orbit). It was much easier and cheaper to use the ptolemaic method to provide our navigators with charts, one where the assumption is the earth is the center of the universe. Star charts can’t be jammed or usurped by the enemy and proved to be very valuable. Does this mean that we live in a world where the earth is the center of the universe? Of course not, what it means is we had a model that was 1500 years old and even though it is ultimately wrong, it provided useful information about ones position on the planet. While this method is completely useless out side of our planet, it is still usable to an end. Science isn’t about the absolute it is about creating better models that allow us to predict things in the universe, even a 1500 year old system that is ultimately wrong is still valuable, and the current model, also likely wrong, is useful for bigger picture items like finding ancient galaxies, black holes, and all sorts of exciting galactic bodies.

I want to gear this site at sharing scientific achievements and the enjoyment of discovery in the hopes that others will join me in the celebration of learning new things about our universe.