Post 44: Reading Goals (cont.)

201 - 300
Again from GoodReads list.
Be aware that there are repeats from earlier in the list.

201. The Once and Future King - TH White
202. The Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
203. Black Beauty - Anna Sewell
204. A Study In Scarlet - Arthur Conan Doyle
205. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers
206. The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
207. Selected Poems - Emily Dickinson
208. Shakespeare's Sonnets - William Shakespeare
209. Book of Mormon - Joseph Smith Jr.
210. The Return of the King - JRR Tolkien
211. Pere Goriot - Honore de Balzac
212. The House of the Seven Gables - Nathaniel Hawthorne
213. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Samuel Taylor Coleridge
214. Charlotte's Web - EB White
215. The Red and the Black - Stendhal
216. King Solomon's Mines - H Rider Haggard
217. Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
218. The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
219. OS Lusiadas - Luis Vaz de Camoes
220. The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
221. A Hora da Estrela - Clarice Lispector
222. Death Comes for the Archbishop - Willa Cather
223. The Complete Marquis de Sade - Donatien-Alphonse-Francois de Sade
224. Utopia - Thomas More
225. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
226. Wives and Daughters - Elizabeth Gaskell
227. Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions - Edwin A Abbott
228. The Prince and the Pauper - Mark Twain
229. The Promise - Chaim Potok
230. Tales of HP Lovecraft - HP Lovecraft
231. Breakfast at Tiffany's - Truman Capote
232. The Tempest - William Shakespeare
233. Sister Carrie - Theodore Dreiser
234. Tender is the Night - F Scott Fitzgerald
235. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
236. Ivanhoe - Walter Scott
237. The Power and the Glory - Graham Greene
238. Foundation - Isaac Asimov
239. Black Boy - Richard Wright
240. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
241. The Complete Hans Christian Anderson Fairy Tales - Hans Christian Anderson
242. The Major Works - William Wordsworth
243. Joan of Arc - Mark Twain
244. The Magician's Nephew - CS Lewis
245. Pet Sematary - Stephen King
246. Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West - Cormac McCarthy
247. Far from the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
248. Dubliners - James Joyce
249. Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett
250. Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family - Thomas Mann
251. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
252. The Mill on the Floss - George Eliot
253. Quo Vadis - Henryk Sienkiewicz
254. Adam Bede - George Eliot
255. Shirley - Charlotte Bronte
256. Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison
257. The Iceman Cometh - Eugene O'Neill
258. The Pit and the Pendulum - Edgar Allan Poe
259. The Sign of Four - Arthur Conan Doyle
260. Gospel According to Jesus Christ - Jose Saramago
261. Grande Sertao: Veredas - Joao Guimaraes Rosa
262. To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
263. The Winter's Tale - William Shakespeare
264. Cyrano De Bergerac - Edmond Rostand
265. Mary Poppins - PI Travers
266. Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie
267. The Magic Mountain - Thomas Mann
268. Franny and Zooey - JD Salinger
269. Antigone - Sophocles
270. Effi Briest - Theodor Fontane
271. Rob Roy - Walter Scott
272. White Fang - Jack London
273. Our Mutual Friend - Charles Dickens
274. The 39 Steps - John Buchan
275. Don Juan - George Gordon Byron
276. I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith
277. We - Yevgeny Zamyatin
278. The Sneetches and other stories - Dr. Seuss
279. Seven Brothers - Aleksis Kivi
280. Fathers and Sons - Ivan Turgenev
281. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Unknown
282. Ulysses - James Joyce
283. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
284. Peter Pan - JM Barrie
285. Lord Jim - Joseph Conrad
286. The Giving Tree - Shel Silverstein
287. Mary Barton - Elizabeth Gaskell
288. Poema de Mio Cid - Anonymous
289. This Side of Paradise - F Scott Fitzgerald
290. Manfred: A Dramatic Poem - George Gordon Byron
291. The Mysterious Island - Jules Verne
292. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
293. The Master of Ballantrae - Robert Louis Stevenson
294. Beau Geste - Percival Christopher Wren
295. The Insulted and Humiliated - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
296. Just So Stories - Rudyard Kipling
297. King Lear - William Shakespeare
298. The Waste Land and Other Poems - TS Eliot
299. We the Living - Ayn Rand
300 - A Girl of the Limberlost - Gene Stratton-Porter

Post 43: 101 - 200 (Reading Goals cont.)

Books 101 - 200
From GoodReads
Some are repeats but I couldn't skip them because then the count would be off.

101. Dune - Frank Herbert
102. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
103. Candide - Voltaire
104. The Jungle - Upton Sinclair
105. The Giver - Lois Lowry Read in High School
106. The Call of the Wild - Jack London
107. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
108. Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories (Vol. 1) - Arthur Conan Doyle
109. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
110. The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
111. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - JK Rowling Read in Grade School
112. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
113. The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
114. The Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer
115. Holy Bible: King James Version
116. Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift
117. Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman
118. Paradise Lost - John Milton Read Summer '11
119. The Time Machine - HG Wells
120. North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell
121. The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales - Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm
122. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
123. The Stranger - Albert Camus
124. Julius Ceasar - William Shakespeare Read in High School
125. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame - Victor Hugo
126. Oedipus Rex - Sophocles
127. Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
128. The Aeneid - Virgil
129. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
130. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
131. Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf
132. The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafza
133. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
134. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
135. Little House in the Big Woods - Laura Ingalls Wilder
136. Native Son - Richard Wright
137. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
138. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
139. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation - Unknown
140. Villette - Charlotte Bronte
141. Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner
142. Faust - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
143. The Art of War - Sun Tzu
144. The Trial - Franz Kafka
145. Green Eggs and Ham - Dr. Seuss Read at some point long ago
146. Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor E. Frankl
147. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
148. My Antonia - Willa Cather
149. The Adventures & Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
150. Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life - George Eliot
151. Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe
152. Cry, the Beloved Country - Alan Paton
153. Anthem - Ayn Rand Read Fall '10
154. A Streetcar Named Desire - Tennessee Williams
155. The Arabian Nights - Richard Francis Burton
156. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
157. Inferno - Dante Alighieri
158. Little Dorrit - Charles Dickens
159. A Separate Peace - John Knowles
160. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - L Frank Baum Read Summer '11
161. An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser
162. Crossing to Safety - Wallace Stegner
163. The House of Mirth - Edith Wharton
164. My Name is Asher Lev - Chaim Potok
165. The Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury
166. Tarzan of the Apes - Edgar Rice Burroughs
167. Around the World in Eighty Days - Jules Verne
168. Blindness - Jose Saramago
169. The Plague - Albert Camus
170. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
171. The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
172. A Room with a View - EM Forster
173. The Taming of the Shrew - William Shakespeare
174. Steppenwolf - Hermann Hesse
175. Cranford - Elizabeth Gaskell
176. Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak
177. Richard III - William Shakespeare
178. The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler
179. A Lesson Before Dying - Ernest J Gaines
180. The Complete Poems - Emily Dickinson
181. A Little Princess - Frances Hodgson Burnett
182. Ethan Frome - Edith Wharton
183. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - Aleksandr I Solzhenitsyn
184. The Phantom Tollbooth - Norton Juster
185. The Tale of Peter Rabbit - Beatrix Potter
186. The Little Mermaid - Hans Christian Anderson
187. Les Fleurs du Mal - Charles Baudelaire
188. A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle
189. Othello - William Shakespeare
190. The Sorrows of Young Werther - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
191. The Complete Stories - Flannery O'Connor
192. The Autobiography of Malcolm X - Malcolm X
193. Songs of Innocence and of Experience - William Blake
194. The Fellowship of the Ring - JRR Tolkien
195. How Green Was My Valley - Richard Llwellyn
196. The Portrait of a Lady - Henry James
197. The Return of the Native - Thomas Hardy
198. Harold and the Purple Crayon - Crockett Johnson Read at some point long ago
199. The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett
200. The Hound of the Baskervilles - Arthur Conan Doyle

Post 42: Reading Goals

So I read a lot in the summer time, and I want to set a goal to read all the 'must read' books. The problem with this goal is that every site on the internet has a different opinion on what the 'must read' books are. I use the GoodReads app so I am going to rely on their list.

1-100 (of 525)
From GoodReads.com

1. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee Read in High School (1)
2. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. 1984 - George Orwell Read in High School (2)
5. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
6. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
7. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
8. Animal Farm - George Orwell Read in High School (3)
9. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
10. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
11. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (#1- #3) - JRR Tolkien
12. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
13. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
14. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
15. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
16. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
17. Dracula - Bram Stoker
18. The Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger Read in High School (4)
19. Lord of the Flies - William Golding Read in High School (5)
20. Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare Read in High School (6)
21. Persuasion - Jane Austen
22. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
23. Emma - Jane Austen
24. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll
25. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
26. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
27. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
28. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
29. Macbeth - William Shakespeare Read in High School (7)
30. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
31. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
32. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
33. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
34. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
35. The Odyssey - Homer
36. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury Read in High School (8)
37. Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
38. Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
39. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
40. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - thomas Hardy
41. The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
42. Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
43. The Chronicles of Narnia (#1 - #7) - CS Lewis
44. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut Read Summer '12 (9)
45. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
46. Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
47. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck Read in High School (10)
48. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
49. All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque
50. Diary of a Young Girl - Anne Frank
51. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
52. Treasure Island - Robert Louise Stevenson
53. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
54. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley Read in High School (11)
55. The Importance of Being Earnest - Oscar Wilde
56. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith
57. A Midsummer Night's Dream - William Shakespeare
58. Moby-Dick - Herman Melville
59. Wuthering Heights, Agnes Grey & Villette - Emily Bronte
60. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
61. The Crucible - Arthur Miller Read in High School (12)
62. The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck Read in High School (13)
63. Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes Read in High School (14)
64. Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
65. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
66. The Iliad - Homer
67. The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales - Edgar Allan Poe
68. The Divine Comedy - Dante Alighieri
69. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain
70. Much Ado About Nothing - William Shakespeare
71. Watership Down - Richard Adams
72. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
73. The Outsiders - SE Hinton Read in High School (15)
74. East of Eden - John Steinbeck
75. The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner
76. The Awakening - Kate Chopin
77. Aesop's Fables - Aesop
78. Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe
79. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne
80. The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories - Franz Kafza
81. The Call of the Wild, White Fang and Other Stories - Jack London
82. The Scarlet Pimpernel - Emmuska Orczy
83. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
84. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
85. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
86. Walden & Civil Disobedience - Henry David Thoreau
87. Night - Elie Wiesel Read in High School (16)
88. Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston
89. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
90. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
91. Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse
92. George Eliot: Middlemarch - Silas Marner - Amos Barton - George Eliot
93. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
94. The Chosen - Chaim Potok
95. Journey to the Center of the Earth - Jules Verne
96. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
97. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess Read Summer '11 (17)
98. The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins
99. The Jungle Books - Rudyard Kipling
100. The Godfather - Mario Puzo

Post 41: Day 40

So the only Lenten resolution I have stuck to is going to Church every Sunday, except on the 18th. I believe my devotion to this resolution has been good for me.

I have accepted Catholic University of America's offer to pursue my graduate degree there. Once I walk across the stage on May 6th I will officially be a first year graduate student at CUA, 5-6 years away from my PhD and my future as an actual physicist.

Easter is in a week and I am looking forward to seeing my family.

Post 40: Day 21

So I have been really bad, in multiple ways.

This week is Spring Break and being home with food everywhere is making it hard to stay on my diet. I did pretty well for the first two days, yesterday I crashed and burnt. I didn't even weigh myself this morning  because I didn't want to know how much I gained.

I started off bad today, I ate my cereal (which was good) but I also snacked on chocolate... I am stopping it. For the rest of the day I am going to be good, and tomorrow I am going to be traveling to Kimberly's so I need to pack good snacks that will prevent me from doing fast food. I am leaving after lunch so it is only dinner that I have to worry about.

My final days of Spring Break are gonna be the hardest because Saint Patrick's Day is Saturday.

I am going to start the 30 day shred at some point (I haven't decided if I am going to start it this week or when I get back to school). I definitely need to start it before the start of April because I want to get done with the 30 days before graduation. I might do a workout or two over the next four days and start it for real on the 18th.

I do have to do something more than walking with mom this week if I am gonna weigh in at 145.5 pounds (or lower) when I get back to school on Sunday.

My goal for April 1st is 139.7 pounds. If I weigh in at 145.5 on the 18th when I get back to school I will only have to lose an average of .5 pounds a day for the rest of March. It might be too much too fast but after March I will get back to slow steady losing because from 139.7 I will only have to lose another 9.4 pounds in 35 days. (1.8 pounds a week)

I will post a blog as the start of my 30 day shred with pictures, start weight and (hopefully) measurements.

Post 39: Day 6

So although I had a small rebound on my weight, 147 pounds today, I am back on track.

Breakfast: Rice Crispies with skim milk, and an orange.
Lunch: Peanut butter and banana sandwich.
Dinner: Mixed greens, cottage cheese, and an apple.

I made it to the gym for 2 hours today, 10 miles on the elliptical. I also did my butt work out.

I am getting nervous for my trip to Alabama. Although it is not my first time traveling alone, I am still nervous. Flying freaks me out, not to mention I need to make a good impression on the Physics department at Auburn. I think most of the nerves are coming from all the stuff I have to get done with before actually taking off.

That's all for today.

Post 38: Day 5

So I dropped the ball big time.

Friday: No Gym, I at least did my butt workout, and I ate meat!! Which wasn't even one of my resolutions but one of the things all catholics are supposed to abstain from. I felt miserable when I realized.

Saturday: No Gym, again, but this time I didn't do my butt workout either, I did walk to Wegman's and got some stuff I needed for my trip to Alabama I have coming this weekend.

Today: It is a new week, and I am going to put those failures out of my mind and focus on today and the rest of the week. I have a lot to get done today. I have to make it to the gym, and I have two modern labs to write up drafts for.

I am awake and getting ready for another Sunday of church. I will say in tomorrow's post whether I get back on track or not.

weight: 146.6 pounds

Post 37: Day 2

I did go to the gym and did my "Daily Butt Workout" yesterday, thought I would mention it just because I posted before I actually did such things. I did get to the gym for an hour and did my butt workout for today as well.

I have been looking at my diet and my workout schedule a lot. To lose weight you must have a calorie defecit but too much of a defecit and your body goes into starvation mode and your metabolism slows down. With my family background my metabolism is slow enough as it is so I do not want my body to feel starved, that being said it probably did not appreciate my fast yesterday.

So I want to share this website because it gives a lot of good information when looking at calorie intake and output when 'dieting' and working out. http://www.shapefit.com/basal-metabolic-rate.html

I don't consider what I am doing dieting because I still eat stuff I want, except at dinner time. I love iceberg lettuce, but I have heard it doesn't have very high levels of nutrients and fiber so I eat the mixed greens, which I really do not enjoy. But I get my cereal in the morning, and a peanut butter and banana sandwich for lunch Monday through Thursday and then I treat myself with a tuna melt on Fridays.

For my current weight of 148.8 my BMR, base metabolic rate, is 1494 calories. I wish I could just stay in bed all day. (Refer to website if you are confused).

I have 73 days left until Graduation! I have an ultimate goal of 130 pounds by then. If I lose 1.8 pounds/week I will get there.

Staying strong with my Lent promises, even though the potato wedges in the caf smelled awesome today.

A big part of weight loss is to set goals, and reward yourself when you reach those goals. My next goal is 145 pounds by March 1st, it's a little bit more weight than I should be losing in one week but I am taking a trip to visit a graduate school and I want to feel good about how I look. Had you asked the 180 pound me back in August how I would feel if I were in the 140s I would have been estatic, but here I am now and I don't feel as happy as I thought I would. I hope I finally get that sense of happiness when I reach my goal.

Maybe that should be something else I work on this Lent, being happier with myself and increasing my self esteem. Well it is only day 2, I have some time.

Post 36: Day 1, Ash Wednesday

Feb. 22: 150.6 lbs

Feb. 22: 150.6 lbs

So according to the priest at St. Boniface's in Williamsport, today is day one of 46 total. Seeing as I will be blogging daily we will be able to see if his count is right.

So I decided to start my Lenten journey with a fast. I have not eaten anything today, and the only thing I have consumed was water. I will not be continuing this past today, but I am considering doing it again on Good Friday at the end of Lent.

So, start weight is 150.6 pounds according to my WiiFit. That means I am 15. 6 pounds from my goal. I may adjust my goal for health, because I should only lose a maximum of 13 pounds for it to be slow enough where I do not rebound. So if I reach 135, great! But if not, if I at least reach 137 pounds that will be good enough.

As for my other goals, since I fasted today all of my "no (insert food/drink here)" I have kept. I got my ashes this morning. After my 7pm colloquium I am going to do my "Daily Butt Workout" and going to the gym. I didn't work on my modern labs, but I will save working on those for the weekend when I have the time. I have to get another draft done and another experiment done before Monday.

Post 35: Lent 2012

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday in the Catholic Church.

I have made the decision that on top of all the other things I am giving up, adding, and setting for my Lenten journey, I will also document it all on the Internet with the help of Google's Blogger. For those of you who may be concerned: my intention is not to post a daily scripture reading, or preach the gospel (although my Sunday posts may contain reflections from mass).

I am using Lent as a way to extend and enhance my New Year's Resolutions. I have only had one post before this one for 2012, and by Easter I hope to have 40+ (One for everyday between now and April 8th).

Lent Resolutions

1) Church every week, beginning with receiving ashes tomorrow morning.

2) No alcohol, no snacks, no soda, no coffee, no candy, and no food after 7 pm.

3) Get all modern labs accepted (school work).

4) reach 135 pounds (15 pounds away).

5) Daily Butt Workout (free app on phone).

6) No dining out (if I am paying).

7) Gym everyday!

Tomorrow, seeing as it will be "Day 1" I will post a 'before' picture, an hopefully in the next 6 weeks there will be a major change in not only in my appearance but in my mental and emotional being.

Post 34: Dark Matter

From PhysOrg.com: NASA satellite could reveal if primordial black holes are dark matter.

In March of 2009 NASA launched the Kepler satellite. While orbiting the sun, Kepler’s objective was to search for Earth-like planets in a portion of the Milky Way galaxy. Recently a team of physicists proposed that Kepler might also be used to detect or rule out the presence of primordial black holes (PBHs) within a certain mass range. The mass range is a category of PBHs that are primarily made up of dark matter.

Scientists from the university of California, San Diego, University of Pennsylvania, and Academia Sinica (Taipei, Tiawan) have published the study on using the Kepler satellite to detect the PBH dark matter in Physical Review Letters.

            Dark matter is one of the biggest unsolved mysteries of science and “an answer would be extraordinary,” Kim Griest, UC-San Diego, said to PhysOrg.com. The two possible outcomes to this study: discovering PBHs are primarily dark matter or nothing is found. According to Griest, the first option would be “totally fascinating,” while the latter would “eliminate…a major contender, but it is not as exciting.”

            Since the 1970s PBHs have been believed to be a candidate for dark matter. The PBHs are believed to have formed during the early universe from density changes that resulted from a variety of sources, such as phase transitions and inflation. There is not one single theory for how PBHs formed, so it is unsure how massive they would be. However, previous work in both theoretical and experimental has eliminated most masses, including almost all masses in the range from 10^-18 to 10¹⁶ solar masses (1.99x10¹² kg – 1.99x10⁴⁶ kg). The only exception is the mass range between 10^-13 and 10^-7 solar masses. Scientists call these 5 orders of magnitude the “PBH dark matter window.”

            Griest and his colleagues think that Kepler data could potentially rule out a significant portion of this window. Currently, one of Kepler’s instruments, the photometer, is measuring the light intensity of stars. The photometer has the ability to measure 150,000 starts every 30 minutes. When analyzing the data, scientists look for specific fluctuations in star light, or stellar flux, since a decrease could signal an Earth-sized planet transiting in front of the star.

            Kepler’s photometer has been shown to also detect small amounts of gravitational lensing, also known as microlensing, which is the bending of star light as it travels through nearby space. According to general relativity, the bending is due to the gravity of an invisible mass that acts as a lens and lies between the light source and the observer, in this case the distant star and the Kepler satellite. This lens could be a PBH or another type of massive compact halo object (MACHO) as well as mini halos, all of which are dark matter candidates.

            According to calculations done by scientists, Kepler is able to detect microlensing events caused by masses in the range between 5x10^-10 and 10^-4 solar masses, which means it could rule out 40% of the mass window stated above if it doesn’t detect anything. But if microlensing is detected the implications would be much more exciting; PBH could be dark matter.

            Griest and his coauthors have begun looking at the vast amount of data. Analyzing the data is not an easy task, it requires an understanding of the complex light curve data, understanding what constitutes a false positive and background events, and using strict selection criteria.

            For more information look to Kim Griest, et al. “Microlensing of Kepler Stars as a Method of Detecting Primordial Black Hole Dark Matter.” Physical Review Letters 107, 231101 (2011).