science, it works bitches!

i really enjoy the comic series xkcd! here's the fantastic t-shirt that i plan to buy as soon as i move back to the states and can have it shipped to me!

front:


back:

description from the website:

Science: We finally figured out that you could separate fact from superstition by a completely radical method: observation. You can try things, measure them, and see how they work! Bitches.

The graph on the back of the shirt is data from the COBE mission, which looked at the background microwave glow of the universe and found that it fit perfectly with the idea that the universe used to be really hot everywhere. This strongly reinforced the Big Bang theory and was one of the most dramatic examples of an experiment agreeing with a theory in history -- the data points fit perfectly, with error bars too small to draw on the graph. It's one of the most triumphant scientific results in history.

... and the two men that predicted and observed the blackbody nature and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation were awarded the 2006 nobel prize in physics! go science!