Name: The fate of the universe rests on the Hubble constant, so why can't we figure out its value? by The Take: Big Ideas Explained in Under 5 Minutes
Duration: 4 min 57 s
Description: Brandeis assistant professor of physics Marcelle Soares-Santos explains why the constant is so difficult to calculate and how her new approach might finally get it right.

I enjoyed this little “velocipod” a lot, but every time a discussion of the age and expansion of the universe come to their evidential roadblock, so does my logic. Why, for example, do we countenance the notion that gravity waves would still be propagating 14 billion years after their generation? But if they are, would not that fact, and their relative vigor—or attenuation—triangulated with their age and our best projection of the size of the universe offer a reasonable value for the Hubble Constant? (Obviously I’m not a cosmologist, so I actually don’t mind an abbreviated, paternalistic mercy reply, delivered with helioturbulent impatience and dripping with maximum glacial disdain!

Brandeis assistant professor of physics Marcelle Soares-Santos explains why the constant is so difficult to calculate and how her new approach might finally get it right.

The fate of the universe rests on the Hubble constant, so why can't we figure out its value?

The Take: Big Ideas Explained in Under 5 Minutes

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