March in Review: Mystery Flight, Crisis in Crimea, Knights, Dames and Ripples in Space-Time

Missing planes, crisis in the Crimea, marching, Knights and Dames and ripples in the fabric of space-time!

First off I will touch on the subject of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 about which, unless you have been in a complete news blackout, you probably already know the details. It has become one of the most consuming mysteries of recent times, inspiring a series of conspiracy theories from terrorist hijacking, government black-ops and aliens. As I type this there is news of significant amounts of debris spotted by satellite so it may yet be a mystery that can be solved.

Australian Maritime Safety Authority Search and Rescue Officers coordinate the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 from the Rescue Coordination Centre in Canberra

What actually happened to the plane remains a mystery. Was it the fault of the pilot who has come under suspicion due to possible political ties and deleted files on his home flight simulator? Was it the two passengers travelling with stolen passports? Was it aliens? Was it a simple technical failure? In a selfish way, I kind of hope we don’t find out. Given some of the theories officials and the media have been throwing out there, or the aspersions being cast over parties on the flight, perhaps, in the end, a little mystery is better than fact.

Crisis in Crimea! I can’t help but read that in a 1940's newsreel voice – it really should be a headline on a spinning newspaper in black and white and superimposed on marching troops. Journalistic nostalgia aside, it turns out that countries prefer not to have sections of their landmass annexed, and on the world stage, when a country as powerful and well-armed as Russia begins throwing its weight around it tends to put people on edge.

Following the deposition of the in no way corrupt Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych, Russian loyalists began taking advantage of the political unrest, which caused a series of dominoes to fall resulting in further political confusion. Enter Russian troops, causing much of the rest of the world to sit up and say, ‘wait a minute….’ The Crimean Parliament is dissolved and a Pro-Russian Prime Minister installed, seeking assistance from Russia with bringing peace, love and harmony in the area and holding a ‘we love Russia’ referendum, the results of which are that apparently Crimea really is cool with being brought back into the fold of a country run by this man...

Russian President Vladimir Putin [RIA Novosti]

The broader ramifications of the move by Russia are yet to play out, but it has very clearly exposed the risk facing Europe due to its dependence on Russian gas. Interesting then, that the US has looked to expand the export of its own natural gas resources. You know, to lower prices, punish Putin, and set Europe free from its reliance on Russia, oh and let’s not forget about making a quid along the way.

It would be remiss of me to not mention the March in March. The protest of various policies and actions of the Abbott Government was attended by around 100,000 people and took place in major cities across the country. Industrial relations, environmental policy, privatisation of public assets, and the treatment of asylum seekers all contributing to the turn out.

Although extensively covered on the internet, the mainstream media was less inclined to talk about the marches, with comparisons drawn with the significant coverage afforded the protests attended by Tony Abbott as then opposition leader, in front of signs criticising Prime Minister Julia Gillard. I’m sure it’s not bothered our illustrious figurehead, but it was a show of force that shows we are not taking this crap lightly. 

While on the topic of Tony ‘Bloke’s Question’ Abbott, he’s now able to pretend he’s the king by swinging a big sword and dubbing not eminent but pre-eminent Australian’s Knights and Dames. One wonders how far away we are from reverting to all out serfdom. Keep an eye out, as four times a year the Prime Minister can swing his big sword and distract from the real issues, like the economy, education, jobs, and asylum seekers.

Finally, something positive – once upon a time the universe was teeny tiny, then something awesome happened and it expanded exponentially creating the universe we know and love. This is the Big Bang. In the early 20th Century scientists discovered that the universe was expanding leading to the inflation theory. What physicists had been trying to do was work out how to prove it.

Nearly a century of scientific work has led to working out what happened and how the universe came into being. In the 1960s two astronomers observed Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) Radiation, which has shown a consistent temperature throughout the universe even to the extreme ends.

http://aether.lbl.gov/www/projects/cobe/

Essentially this means that these two points of the universe were once close friends and that their steamy one night stand occurred some 380,000 years after the Big Bang. And, it was at this point that matter started clumping together and light could move about (this is where the universe immediately regretted the mistakes it made and promised it would totally call, but things have been really busy so it might not be for a while).

Anyway the inflation theory is about what happened before the universe started going its separate ways. In the 1990s scientists found evidence of ripples in the CMB spurring more interest in the inflation theory. These ripples were fluctuating in space-time but were thought to be the hallmark of the universe losing its shit and ejaculating crazy physics all over the place. The theory figured that these ripples would leave a distinct signature and the scientific community started looking for that evidence.

This month we found that signature, which means scientists can now look more confidently beyond the 380,000 mark, and start working out what happened and cause the universe to come into being. It also means that science is totally gonna get laid (or, maybe not).

-Paul Briske