About me

Hi this is Steve Hurley

From an early age I have had an interest in science and astronomy. After leaving high school I studied mathematics and astronomy at Warwick University, followed by a PhD in astronomy from Manchester University. I then went on to work in various roles in the IT industry. My wife and I  live near Manchester in north west of England (with our elderly rather spoilt cat 😉 )

My passion is explaining scientific ideas to the interested lay person and since 2014 I have  been writing a  popular science blog (www.explainingscience.org). It is about astronomy, space travel and space,  written at a level which is easily accessible to the non-scientist but without being dumbed down. This is often a difficult balance to achieve, but I hope I manage it most of the time.

In 2020 I started my YouTube channel  , which is well worth checking out !

67 thoughts on “About me”

  1. Why would a Galaxy with a given recession velocity be farther away than expected and hence fainter if the universe is accelerating, and is the red shift a true measure of its velocity?

    Like

  2. G’duy, mite

    Here’s lookin’ at U from DU. CH! Great stuff.

    Would U believe I just called to wish U a HNY? No? And U’d be right, too.

    Come and talk to me, mite. I’m from another planet.
    “He means off the planet”! Well obviously. U’d have to be. Der! H! “See”!?

    Seriously, now.
    I would like to talk to U about the accelerating expansion:

    .1 When I first heard Brainy Schmidt say that the type Ia SNs were
    dimmer than expected, from their CRSs, I thought “How can that be? I
    thought H0 was constant. Oh, they forgot to take the cosmological
    dispersion into account! But how can that be? They are pros and it is
    elementary, and they seem to have taken everything else into account.
    But then again I have never come across CD!? How can that be? And what
    other explanation is there”? Have U, come across it?

    If Space expansion causes a CRS, wouldn’t it also cause a CD,
    in addition to the classical inverse-square one, with distance.
    Coz Space is 3D, and it expands in 3D, both radially and laterally,
    so distant galaxies just appear extra/dim/mer!
    So, the expansion may not be accelerating, at all!?
    But/t I have no problem if it is. My model can accommodate it.
    Did they take that into account? I’m not aware they did.

    Yes in my hardware based/physical/classical model,
    Space is an actual expanding 3D medium.

    .2 When I first read this article, in the September 23, 2008
    UnScientific Amerkin, I felt like Costello in the “Who’s on first, base”
    comedy sketch/routine! Can U please explain it, to me. What is what, why
    and how? And is H0 going up, or down? They keep saying it’s going down,
    so DE must be pushing stuff out, thru Space, giving them extra RS.

    The Expanding Universe: From Slowdown to Speed Up
    . Distant supernovae are revealing the crucial time when the expansion
    of the universe changed from decelerating to accelerating
    . By Adam G. Riess & Michael S. Turner

    “If the expansion is slowing down, the velocity of a distant galaxy
    would be relatively greater than the velocity predicted by Hubble’s law.
    If the expansion is speeding up, the distant galaxy’s velocity would
    fall below the predicted value. Or, to put it another way, a galaxy with
    a given recession velocity will be farther away than expected and hence
    fainter if the universe is accelerating.”

    My understanding is that luminosity decreases faster than CRS increases,
    coz it decreases as the inverse-square, with distance, even if U take
    the CD into account, and the RS increases (only) linearly, so a greater
    separation affects luminosity much more. But shouldn’t they stay in
    step, keeping H0 constant!? What do U think?

    HNY

    PSt! U can delete my previous post.

    Like

  3. Hey…are you aware of the very, ahem, *lengthy* comment from a couple years ago, near the top of this comments section? It’s very long – more than 4 times the length of one of my science articles – and sounds like bogus paranoia. (Something about doctors and government planting surveillance devices on people and in their homes, and whispering constantly in their ear?) I’m flagging it to your attention because it strikes me as a bit of an eyesore and detracts from your community interaction in the rest of the comments. It was difficult to scroll past it and leave a comment of my own.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Wow, you’ve been visiting my blog for a while, but I only just got around to checking out your site! Dang – I’m jealous! You seriously have followers in the thousands? I have not quite 300. Though maybe if I’d managed to post consistently the last 10 years, I’d have more.

    It’s good to see someone else explaining science to the non-expert. 🙂

    Like

      1. Speaking for myself, my blog is my most important priority – I’ve always felt as if science education is painfully lacking, and the world desperately needs people who will teach it the way I hope to. While all my other extracurriculars are passion projects in themselves, my blog feels more like a *purpose.* (Of course, I don’t have a career yet, so it really is frontmost on my agenda.) Recently, I developed a schedule for myself that I hope I can stick to – blog on the first day of my weekend, other projects on the second day. The rest of my week is, unfortunately, warehouse labor. But my goal is to switch to a more rewarding job and free up almost all my time for the important things. Theoretically, I would post on my blog just as often when I’m working at a university – but obviously I can’t *really* know how that will work out! I’m sure I’ll find out for myself eventually just how much you have on your plate 😉

        Like

  5. Hi Steve,
    Please advise the approximate Radius LY distance of the original departure point CMB radiation we see here and now, that’s 13B rounded LY to get here?
    also
    what’s the nearest known departure point of any light we see here and now, that’s ever been subjected to any comic expansion?
    please advise,
    TY,
    roger m

    Liked by 1 person

  8. I’ve placed a post on my own page, using the #Facebook, to try to find out why you’ve been blocked. I’m hoping such a public question might create some positive response. I’ll let you know if I receive a reply.

    Liked by 1 person

    2. I have just been informed that it is because Facebook has blocked my domain http://www.explainingscience.org!
      I have found out that this can be quite time consuming for an individual who is not a business (i.e not paying Facebook anything) to get Facebook to resolve this. If I can’t resolve it quickly I may simply have to temporarily remove the FB share button ;-(

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Facebook’s algorithms are definitely idiosyncratic. Might be worth simply asking them the question ‘why?’ as they seem happy to rely on the outcome of their ‘policeman’ but generally look at anything brought to their attention. Good luck with them. They once deleted a post of mine, on my author page, because they thought it was spam. I explained it was my post, on my page about my book. They apologised and reinstated the post!

        Liked by 2 people

        1. Hi the issue I am have having is that, as an individual rather than organisation paying Facebook money, I cannot find any way to contact FaceBook directly to ask a human the question “Why has my domain http://www.explainingscience.org been blocked?’

          The only thing WordPress could suggest to help me was to post a question on the Facebook Help Forum https://www.facebook.com/help/community/ and hope someone would answer it. I have done this but I have had no replies to my question

          If you (any other readers) could suggest any way of contacting a human in Facebook that would be great!!

          Liked by 2 people

  16. Hi,

    Just following up as I didn’t hear back from you, sorry to email you again. I noticed your page thesciencegeek.org/2015/03/21/easter-sunday-5-th-april/ links to http://www.timeanddate.com. Unfortunately, that site isn’t very accessible for the sight impaired. Would you consider adding a link to a more accessible version like http://www.thetimenow.com which is WCAG 2.0 compatible?

    Also, if you ever want to see how accessible a page is, I recommend wave.webaim.org. It is really helpful.

    Thanks,
    Shane Buck

    Liked by 1 person

  23. Hi, Thesciencegeek! Glad to make your acquaintance! I plan to make your site one of my daily stops. Your writing is awesome! NOW, I would like to ask you a question and you can answer it in the form of a blog post if you want to–or not. How would you go about refuting the Flat Earth crowd who still, somehow, believe that the earth is a disc rather than a globe? I am completely on board with the globe earth as I was taught growing up, but these flat earthers have some very interesting theories. I was wondering if you have ever looked at them. (For a chuckle, of course.) And if I were to engage someone like this, how could I debunk their claims? Just throwing that out there for ya, in case you were bored! LOL Thanks! Look forward to hearing from you!

    Liked by 1 person

  24. Hey Science Geek,

    I love your posts. I read them almost every time I get the email. I don’t know of you take requests or not, but I’d love to read your thoughts on KIC 8462852.

    Either way, keep up the great work.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Thank you very much. I am glad you are enjoying my blog and you find my posts interesting.
      The brightness fluctuations in KIC 846282 would certainly make a very interesting interesting topic for a post. I’ll see how I get on. There are so many interesting topics to blog about and I have my few posts planned already and time is always in short supply because in addition to being the Science Geek I have a full time day job 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

    1. Hi Thanks very much for the invitation. I will have to put your request on hold for the moment as I have full time day job in addition to being the science geek. I have had a look a number of your posts and they certainly look interesting.
      Your might be interested in a number of posts on cosmology I have done. I have included some links below
      (1) The Universe Past, Present and Future. This describes what is meant by the Universe and gives an overview of its origins, evidence for its expansion and discusses briefly its ultimate fate. To view this post click here http://thesciencegeek.org/2014/10/28/the-universe-past-present-and-future/

      (2) A brief history of the Universe. This gives a history of the Universe from just after the big bang until the current date. To view this post click here http://thesciencegeek.org/2014/11/17/a-brief-history-of-the-universe/

      (3) Dark Energy. This post gives the reasons why cosmologist believe dark energy exists and why it makes up nearly 70% of the mass of the Universe. To view this post click here http://thesciencegeek.org/2015/01/12/dark-energy/

      (4) Dark Energy over Time. This post discusses how the amount of dark energy in the Universe has varied over time and its implications on its future evolution. To view this post click here http://thesciencegeek.org/2015/01/25/dark-energy-over-time/

      (5) Dark Matter. This post discusses evidence for dark matter, the mysterious substance which makes up around 25% of the mass of the Universe. To view this post click here http://thesciencegeek.org/2015/02/18/dark-matter/

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Hello,

        First of all thank you for taking out time and replying in such a detail.

        About the request no problems at all. Thank you for the appreciation. I will certainly look at your post. Also in future if you change your mind let me know :).
        Regards,
        Tausif

        Liked by 1 person

  26. “There may be babblers, wholly ignorant of mathematics, who dare to condemn my hypothesis, upon the authority of some part of the Bible twisted to suit their purpose. I value them not, and scorn their unfounded judgment.”

    Nicolas Copernicus’

    “I think you can see Liverpool’s new Main Stand from where you live!”

    Anvil Springstien.

    Liked by 1 person

  29. You have a gift for teaching — for conveying the complex in simple enough terms for the non-versed of us to comprehend — and a great site. I was a biology major as an undergraduate (many eons ago), but have not lost that sense of awe the beauty and mystery of the universe inspire. It kills me that the boundary between science and pseudo-science is being blurred. We are not only “dumbing down” the next generation, we are actively pursuing ignorance.

    Liked by 2 people

  31. Thank you for stopping by my blog and checking out my cosmology bookshelf. Always nice to run across other fascinated by cosmology. Thanks for your site, too. I recently ran across rainbow universe theory, so I’ve found another internet rabbit wormhole to dive into. Cheers!

    Liked by 1 person

  36. Hello, and thanks for stopping by my site. I am science geek as well, though I am an English professor. I have been a closet space nerd since I was a kid. I love your site, and will be back often!

    Liked by 1 person

  40. Thank you very much for the “like” of my recent guest post on First Night History. I read and enjoyed your own blog, The Science Geek.

    As you may know, I am working on a history book-blog of my own, which can be seen at [one word] theoryofirony.com, then clicking on either the “sample chapter” or “blog” buttons at the top. My Rube Goldberg brain asks with an odd, well-caffeinated kind of logic: Why is there an inverse proportion between the size of the print and the importance of the message? Science. Commerce. Art. Literature. Military. Religion. I call this eccentric thinking the Theory of Irony and if your busy schedule permits, give a read and leave a comment.

    P.S. I do believe you would be intersted in another recent guest post at “The Freelance History Writer” which I called, “The Battle of All Time.”

    Regards,
    Erik Von Norden

    Liked by 1 person

  44. Hi there, thanks for stopping by my blog. It’s nice to read scientific articles that are clear and understandable to the non-scientific mind. I look forward to following your posts. By the way, my Dad is from your neck of the woods, but he left Oldham in his late teens.

    Liked by 1 person

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