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An Open Letter to Nancy Mace: Go to Hell—or Propose Single-Stall Bathrooms. Sarah McBride show some backbone.

Let’s get something straight: your obsession with trans people using bathrooms is a distraction...

We Need A Million Person March

Nearly 30 years ago, Minister Louis Farrakhan called for the Million Man March—a gathering of...

Does Chat GPT Think, Is AI Research Physics, And Are We In A Universe Based On Voxels?

The answers to the title questions are, No, Yes, and why not.  What I have been doing instead...

A New Theory of Everything That Sets Scalars Equal To Tensors Looks Like Nonsense.

If your theory of everything has tensors set equal to scalars then it is wrong. Simply put...

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Hontas FarmerRSS Feed of this column.

My research focuses on astrophysics from massive star formation to astroparticle physics. Born and raised in Chicagoland I have lived in Bellwood, IL since 1984 and attended public schools here... Read More »

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The following is an evolving news story. It seems that a disgruntled staffer changed the website of the department of state to indicate that the President has resigned. This appears to be false. I have sought comment from the White House, the personnel on the phone had no idea this was even an issue. While a formal comment or press release about this is hopefully going to occur, it can be said that Buzz Feed's reporting is likely accurate. Now it is abundantly clear that the hack of the department of states website was not a leak of any kind. Mike Pence and Donald Trump are going to work together to the end of his term. Per business insider.

Jan 6 th 2020 will be remembered as a day of farce and tragedy in close proximity.  Right now, passions are high, tensions are high.  Right now, is the time when scientist and academics must hew to our basic principles and the principles embodied in the constitution.  Even as leaders, especially but not exclusively Trump, not exclusively Republican fail to do so.  We are voices of reason who the general public greatly respect even when they disagree.  The very rancor of the anti-science people left and right comes from the fact the value what we say.  Their anger comes from the fact that people whose training they understand the value of

Space Force has chosen the term guardians for what to call them.  As in Army soldiers, Navy sailors, Marines…marines.  What gets tricky now a days is calling Airmen, airmen. Some have said that guardians are too sci fi.  The truth is it really is not, and a space focused military force would look like science fiction until it was commonplace.  The name is thoughtful anyone can be a guardian if they have the right stuff.

It is not sexist to avoid calling Jill Biden Doctor Biden in situations where her doctorate is not relevant.

Gravitational waves and particle physics experiments being mixed is  something  I  have theorized  about for  a couple of years (1).     Now a new paper by  Suvrat  Rao,  Marcus  Brüggen, and  Jochen  Liske has  taken  this to  another  level (2).   They have worked out and demonstrated in detail how a circular particle accelerator such as the LHC could be used to observe gravitational waves in the mHz range.  This differs from experiments such as LIGO and LISA in the physical mechanism by which the gravitational waves would be detected.  

Arecibo while no longer unique in design since China built a similar and larger telescope was special. What should replace it is something that will exceed what it is able to do. There is already a well formed plan for such a radio telescope using a properly chosen lunar crater. Taking an existing landform and using it for the dish reduces the work that needs to be done. Locating this hypothetical observatory on the Moon’s far side would shield it from most all man made radio noise. Combining data from a Moon based radio telescope with that from Earth based radio telescopes could result in data of a detail that we may not match for another century. This is doable with current technology.