About Brett Vollert

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So far Brett Vollert has created 67 blog entries.

Goodbye Blue Sky

By | 2015-11-11T07:31:13-08:00 September 19th, 2012|Astronomy, Physics, Politics, Science, Technology|

  All men have looked up at the sky in wonder, but less have looked down from the sky in awe.  Few have been wrapped in the dark arms of the universe.  And even fewer have seen all of mans existence shrink into a pale blue dot as Carl Sagan so eloquently put it.  These men, through the help of our government were the pioneers of a new frontier.  And their efforts have paved the way for hundreds of new space fearing innovations like satellites, orbiting telescopes, and private space flight.  But even though this innovation has redefined the skyline, it still has found a glass [...]

What is Real?

By | 2016-04-25T21:47:13-07:00 September 8th, 2012|Featured, Philosophy, Physics, Science|

What can we not doubt? What can we be certain of? It seems all that we can be entirely certain of is that we are in fact experiencing something, even while not knowing quite what it is.  In the words of Decartes, “cogito ergo sum” or  “I think therefore I am,”  our experience is our reality, and our thoughts are our souls.  So how does this consciousness, capable of experiences, stem from matter. “Well whatever matter is made of it clearly isn’t matter” (source unknown).  At least not as defined by common understanding.  We see matter as inanimate, lifeless and [...]

The Big Freeze

By | 2015-11-11T07:31:58-08:00 September 7th, 2012|Astronomy, Philosophy, Physics, Science, Technology|

Like most landmark discoveries, the history of our universe was stumbled upon by accident.  It seems most game-changing, earth-shattering discoveries are a product of proper planning giving opportunity to dumb luck.  (The discoveries of radiation, the electromagnetic force and penicillin to name a few.) Albert Einstein once said, “Education is what is left after we have forgotten all we have learned in school.” And it seems similarly, scientific break-throughs are what is left after the scientific method breaks down. The discovery that revealed our universe's rich history was the detection of cosmic background radiation, and it was found in a [...]

Particle Physic’s Independence Day: July 4th 2012

By | 2015-11-11T07:32:12-08:00 July 4th, 2012|Physics, Politics, Technology|

  The opening of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland in 2008 was paired with grandiose predictions of a glimpse of the early universe and the elusive Higgs particle.  “The particle that gives all other particles Mass.”  Or so they thought as they dubbed it “the God Particle,” giving rise to the first transatlantic particle physics holy war between CERN in Geneva and Fermilab in Chicago, IL. Fermilab was home to the Tevatron particle accelerator that had been in operation since 1983, and with the creation of the LHC at CERN they were immediately dwarfed as technologically [...]