I took a class, at Johns Hopkins University, last semester called Stars and the Universe. I’ve enthusiastically recommended very few classes to my friends, and this was one of them. He’s a great professor who makes the material understandable and entertaining — and even inspiring, at times. I was constantly impressed by his ability to use analogies to help you understand. If you take the class, you’ll learn a lot about astronomy, and you can learn it even if you aren’t a science person (so says the philosophy major). Some of the things you learn about are mindboggling, such as the existence of dark matter.

The professor, Adam Riess, was actually involved in the discovery of dark energy. His thesis involved getting more accurate measurements for the distance to Type Ia supernovae by correcting for dust. He was a member of one of those groups mentioned in this NY Times article about dark matter, which won the Shaw Prize.

Anyway, here’s the part where they quote my professor:

Nor is there any solid evidence yet that dark energy is or is not varying with time — if it is not constant, it cannot be Einstein’s constant. Adam Riess of the Johns Hopkins space telescope institute, a key member of Dr. Schmidt’s team, said, “The biggest thing we could learn is by ruling that out.”

He added, “We have a suspect, but we’re not ready to convict anyone yet.”

Not a huge quote, but cool, nonetheless.