The 4 Percent Universe
Page 32
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* Who by now realized that inflation would explain why his 1977 U-2 experiment might have failed to find the rotation of the universe: The universe as a whole might indeed be rotating, but we wouldn't be able to detect the effect in our little inflationary bubble.
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* Actually, gravity is the weakest of the four forces. But "It's not the strong nuclear, it's jealousy" doesn't really land, as they say in standup.
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† A poke in the eye, or at least a joke: The other option was the Astrophysical Journal, but the High-z team wanted to underscore that they were doing astronomy.
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* Checking into a local hotel on a previous visit, I asked the desk clerk where I could find the headquarters for the Hubble Space Telescope. He disappeared into a back room to confer with a supervisor, then returned to the counter. "The Hubble Space Telescope is"—he paused, and pointed—"up there."
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* And therefore also said nothing about a value of omega for the total amount of matter. So if you wanted a flat, omega-equals-1, inflationary universe, the number 0.1 for the ratio of baryonic matter to critical density wasn't particularly troubling. The ratio of total density—baryonic and non-baryonic matter—to the critical density could still be equal to or even greater than 1.
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* The acronym preceded, and inspired, MACHO.
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* !
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* Currents that move around the vertical axis.
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* In contrast, Mount Washington, New Hampshire, at an elevation 3,000 feet lower than the South Pole, long held the record for highest wind measured at the surface of the Earth: 231 mph.
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* More precisely, Einstein argued that this was the logic physicists had already been following; they just didn't know it or, in some cases, including that of Einstein early in his career, refused to acknowledge it.
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* Or "N*** Prize," as some scientists, including Kirshner, often prefer to write it; apparently science can banish medieval superstition only so much.
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* For his part, Petit recalled sitting at his desk the day his article ran and looking at other newspapers and media outlets to see how they had covered the big news, finding nothing, and thinking, "What the fuck."
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* Some of the citations to Finkbeiner refer to unpublished information from her notes and interviews. The author gives special thanks for this extraordinary courtesy.
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