Antimatter

The folks at CERN have trapped anti-hydrogen for a whopping 16 minutes and change. The mind boggles. We are finally moving in the twenty-first century. Read the whole story here.

End Of An Era

The final landing of the Discovery marks the end of an era, but I'm not all that sad about it. After all, it was just a glorified lorry. Much of what the shuttle did, such as resupplying the International Space Station, could have been accomplished with conventional rockets. Could the ISS have been built without the shuttle? I don't see why not. Even as a reusable space craft, the shuttle was limited since many systems were had to be rebuilt after every mission.

I am more sad that the shuttle is being retired with no immediate replacement in sight. It reminds me too much much of the Apollo program, which also ended with no clear direction for the future. After 50 years, we've advanced very little in manned space travel. If it were not for our robotic explorers, humans would have no presence in the Solar system at all. At our current rate of development, I am very doubtful that humans will ever visit the places that Voyager I has. Perhaps I'm being too pessimistic.

What Is Time?

Time travel stories have been a around long before the science fiction genre was conceived. But what is time exactly? Here's an interview in Wired with Sean Carroll, a physicist who is trying to find the answer. It's a great read but I liked his answer as to whether time travel is possible. He doesn't rule it out but it isn't likely either. In other words, we just don't know.

Of course, it depends on how you define time travel. I time travel into the future at a rate of one second per second. Perhaps others travel at a different rate? ^_^

Dark Matter

So what happens if we confirm the existence of dark matter? Perhaps Douglas Adams already gave us the answer:

There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

The man was a genius!