Today we went on a balloon ride in the city, called Aeroballoon. It's tag line was "Defy Gravity". I don't think I want to defy gravity. After all the GR reading this summer, I have a new found appreciation for gravity on all scales. And it keeps me safe, including ensuring our atmosphere stays attatched to the Earth. Plus, I thought the principles of bouyancy were pretty well understood? Is this really defiance on the part of us mere mortals, or just explotation of a loophole? Don't thumb your nose lightly at laws of nature!
There was a WMAP colloquium today. It's good stuff. The most I got from it (the plots were rather confusing I felt) was that the data requires cold Dark Matter. The first round of WMAP data left some room for alternative theories, but the new constraints on the data (especially the l=2 "anomaly" from before) don't leave much wiggle room. So I guess it turns out the rotation curves were right after all. He also talked a lot about the polarization part of it, but this doesn't seem to be limiting much yet, and it's my understanding the WMAP won't be able to do much in this area. I'm sure they would disagree, but I didn't follow all that well during this part of the talk so I can't say for sure. I'm very excited for PLANCK, which is designed to improve the WMAP measurements and specifically look at the polarization of the CMB.
Tonight is the opening night for the NFL, the 'Fins at the Steelers. I'm rooting for the Steelers, but I'm just excited that football is back! I'm going over to a friends house for some beer, pizza and the game. Yes!
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