The James Webb Space Telescope

Post author:The Physics Detective
Post published:13th July 2022
Post category:Cosmology
Post comments:6 Comments

I’m sorry I haven’t posted for months. Part of the reason is that the day job has been extremely tough this year. It’s a lot to do with Covid. As you will know if you’ve applied for a driving licence or booked a flight, a lot of organisations are not functioning effectively right now. That’s due to past layoffs, or staff going part time, or retiring, or “working from home”. In addition, training is more difficult when people are not in the office, and it all…

Misconceptions in gravitational physics

Post author:The Physics Detective
Post published:15th June 2019
Post category:Black holes Gamma ray bursts Gravity Hawking radiation Singularities Time
Post comments:39 Comments

I think it’s safe to say that there are some misconceptions in physics. The issue of course, is how many. That’s where I part company with your average physicist. He’ll tell you that whilst we don’t understand everything, we do understand some things, such as black holes. Only he doesn’t. Take a look at the Wikipedia black hole article. It says this: “a black hole is a region of spacetime exhibiting gravitational acceleration so strong that nothing - no particles or even electromagnetic radiation such as…