Look at part 1 if you’re a newcomer. If not, welcome back, let’s continue the effort. As I’ve stated before, Newton’s theory of gravity was a bit on the incorrect side. See, it stated that there were attractive forces pulling objects towards more massive objects, and for people feeling the gravity of the Earth, that was a good enough explanation. The source of this force, however, always eluded Newton. It wasn’t until over 200 years after that things really began to change with Einstein’s emerging theory of relativity. Specifically, his theory of General Relativity.

General Relativity is like Special Relativity…

Buckle up kids, this is going to take some effort from you and me. So the first thing I want to say about the theories of relativity, because there are two, is that they are about just that: relativity. If all else fails and you can’t grasp the ideas being shown to you, just remember that we’re talking about how things relate to one another within spacetime. Let’s first talk about history.

You see, for years after Newton’s laws of gravity and motion, scientists were a bit uncertain about their succinctness and ability to properly explain more complicated factors. After…

As a child, black holes felt like the final bosses of the universe: unfeeling, scary, powerful, and, strangely, evil. Given their nature, it’s really easy to become afraid of the sheer power of a black hole; however, should their power instill fear, or should it be a source of curiosity and awe? Because I think it’s pretty awesome now that I’m older.

It’s kind of crazy how our perspectives are influenced by popular media. By no means do I blame anyone for thinking that black holes are monstrous, it seems that whenever movie-makers needs “space conflict” they turn towards aliens…

10 years ago my grandpa sent me an article about a new scientific discovery, “Apophis”. Typically I’d be excited to read all about this new finding, but young-mind paranoia made this article a bit scarring to get through; see, Apophis was, and is, an asteroid — a huge asteroid…Headed for Earth! Well at least it was back then. While I spent a month or so imagining what I’d do in 2029 when my family life would inevitably be “impacted” by an approaching meteor, reality was a bit more relaxed. …

I’ve said that space was big before. It’s extremely full of nothing, everything is far apart, and the likelihood of us — that is, humanity — ever expanding away from here is low to impossible. Strangely that sounds extremely cynical, but it’s such a true reality of the state of where we are that it surprises me when people suggest aliens might have visited the Earth, or that we’ll eventually build ships to travel out into space, looking for a planet like ours. So, let’s try to see how hard it is to be optimistic about space travel.

Firstly I…

Orbital Assembly Corp, a new rising “space success story” is planning on building a space hotel by the year 2027. Honestly I have to admit that this is pretty cool, but despite its very ambitious insurrection, this feels so strangely wrong. I’ll address it more concisely, don’t worry.

1. Who even is Orbital Assembly Corp (OAC) and how can a random company like it be able to create such a bold plan like this with confidence? The first thing I see on Google about it are its home page, news websites discussing the Voyager Station, and its Linkedin profile. …

I love Star Wars. Not in a geeky way of course, my attraction to it just comes from my interest in astronomy and the sci-fi genre — which, admittedly, is a pretty geeky combo. I would have to say, however, that I’d happily be the geek who understands astronomy and the fact Star Wars is science fiction, than the non-fan who thinks we’ll be traveling through space for vacation in the next century. I’ll say it in the simplest way: space is empty. And you might think “well the moon is right there, and so are the planets.” Well if…