It looks as if most of the mass of the Universe is in the form of ‘dark energy’-an incredible proposition. Dark energy-not to be confused with dark matter is gravitationally repulsive, making the Universe expand faster and faster. Nobody knows what dark energy is. It could be the energy of outer space, as was suggested [...]
“Optimism is an essential ingredient of innovation,” Robert Noyce What did Robert Noyce invent? Robert Noyce invented the integrated chip which paved the way for the microprocessors used in modern computers. He was a computer industry pioneer and was given the nickname ‘Mayor of Silicon Valley’. Along with Jack Kilby, Noyce created the integrated circuit [...]
Mars The Red Planet Mars is often in the news at present, humans are always striving to discover more about the Universe and Mars seems the most obvious place to have the first interplanetary visit from Earth. Although not the planet that comes closest to the Earth (that record belongs to Venus), Mars seems as [...]
Early ideas about Evolution In the early 1800’s most people believed in the description of the Creation in the Bible, worked out by Archbishop of Armagh, James Usher to be 4004 BC. Fossils were said to be remains of past catastrophes, such as the Biblical Flood and the plagues of Egypt. During the 18th Century [...]
Do neutrinos go faster than the speed of light? A burning topic at the moment is the discovery by Italian physicists that the tiny subatomic particles called neutrinos travel slightly faster than the speed of light. They have tested the theory over 15,000 times and claim there is nothing wrong with their calculations. If this [...]
There are now an enormous number of different subatomic particles in the known universe, protons and neutrons are the best known to us, but there are many more, most of which decay very rapidly.
The known universe is thought to be 13.7 Billion years old and was created in the ‘Big Bang’.
