Ethan Siegel

Ethan Siegel

A theoretical astrophysicist and science writer, host of popular podcast “Starts with a Bang!”

Ethan Siegel Starts with a Bang!

Ethan Siegel is a Ph.D. astrophysicist and author of "Starts with a Bang!" He is a science communicator, who professes physics and astronomy at various colleges. He has won numerous awards for science writing since 2008 for his blog, including the award for best science blog by the Institute of Physics. His two books "Treknology: The Science of Star Trek from Tricorders to Warp Drive" and "Beyond the Galaxy: How humanity looked beyond our Milky Way and discovered the entire Universe" are available for purchase at Amazon. Follow him on Twitter @startswithabang.

A man in a suit holds up a Hurricane Dorian forecast map in an office, tracing the storm’s projected path and intensity over several southeastern U.S. states and the Bahamas—echoing the urgent clarity of a 1938 science manifesto defending democracy.
As democracy recedes and fascism rises in the USA and around the world in 2025, history provides a lesson in how science can fight fascism.
Illustration of a large particle accelerator facility underground, with scientists working and a city landscape above ground.
The laws of nature are almost perfectly symmetric between matter and antimatter, and yet our Universe is made ~100% of matter only. But why?
A repeating pattern of wireframe 3D geometric shapes intersected by diagonal yellow lines on a black background, evoking a physics break down of forms at the Planck scale.
There are limits to where physics makes meaningful predictions: beyond the Planck length, time, or energy. Here's why we can't go further.
Bright star at the center of a blue nebula radiates mass energy, surrounded by numerous smaller stars, with diffraction spikes visible from the brightest stars.
All stars shine due to an internal source of energy. Usually, it's nuclear fusion: converting mass into energy. What makes them most bright?
Photons come in every wavelength you can imagine. But one particular quantum transition makes light at precisely 21 cm, and it's magical.
You don't need to be a scientist or a philosopher for facts, reality, and the truth to matter. The alternative is simply known as bullshit.
An artist's rendering of an alien planet and a red star.
A Cambridge-based team claims to find molecules on an exoplanet that are only produced by life on Earth. Don't fall for the unfounded hype.