Archive for the ‘All’ Category
Long Ago & Far Away
In a recent comment to a post I made about reading Chet Raymo's book Walking Zero, Bill asked an interesting question: Jeff, there's a question that has always bothered me. Raymo's talk about the Hubble Space Telescope's Ultra Deep Field image (page 174) raised it for me again. I'm sure you have the answer, or […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science
When Celsius = Fahrenheit
A while back, someone ended up at a page on this blog by asking Google for "the temperature at which the Celsius scale and Fahrenheit scale are the same number". I don't think they found the answer because I'd never actually discussed that question1, but I thought the question was pretty interesting and discussing the […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science
On Reading Doubt, A History
At the end of 2007 I finished reading Jennifer Michael Hecht's Doubt, A History : The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickenson (New York : HarperSanFrancisco, 2003, 551 pages). What a fun book it was to read, too! I thoroughly enjoyed both the reading […]
Easy Entropy
Thermodynamics is the theory that deals with heat and heat flow without reference to the atomic theory; it was developed at the same time as the steam engine and the family resemblances are striking. All concepts about temperature and pressure in terms of our perceptions of atomic or molecular motion came later and properly belong […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science
On Reading Diamond's The Third Chimpanzee
Recently I finished reading Jared Diamond's The Third Chimpanzee : The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal (New York : HarperCollins Publishers, 1992, 407 pages). I quite enjoyed it. It's the third of his books I've read. I previously enjoyed Collapse and Guns, Germs, and Steel, but I didn't mind that this was a […]
In: All, Books, It's Only Rocket Science
Odds & Odders
What to do with goofy stuff that would just get lost in the already over-extended bookmarks? Blog them, of course! Any of you who are organists, or any of you who are married to organists, plus a whole bunch of other people, have already heard the relatively insipid Toccata from Charles-Marie Widor's "Organ Symphony #5". […]
On Reading Napoleon's Buttons
Also a few months back, I read the delightful Napoleon's Buttons : How 17 Molecules Changed History, by Penny Le Couteur and Jay Burreson (New York : Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 2003, 375 pages). I haven't run across so many popular chemistry books so far, but this clearly is one of the good ones. I enjoyed […]
In: All, Books, It's Only Rocket Science
A note on Aspirin
Here's another book that I read some months ago, but only get around to mentioning now: Diarmuid Jeffreys, Aspirin : The Remarkable Story of a Wonder Drug (New York : Bloomsbury, 2004, 335 pages). Here's my book note about it. This was a book by a journalist rather than a scientist. Occasionally the writing was […]
In: All, Books, It's Only Rocket Science
Beard of the Week XXXI: Beauty in Science
This week's beard belongs to geneticist Sean Carroll, professor of genetics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and author of the book Endless Forms Most Beautiful, which is what this post is really about. The book, that is to say, although it does demonstrate that I'm not above finding a scientist attractive for his […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Books, It's Only Rocket Science
On Reading Raymo's Walking Zero
I've recently finished reading Walking Zero : Discovering Cosmic Space and Time Along the Prime Meridian. (New York : Walker & Company, 2006; 194 pages) by Chet Raymo. It was an absolute delight. It's sort of a poetic rumination on how, since antiquity, what we know about how old the Earth is, how old the […]
In: All, Books, It's Only Rocket Science
The Pendulum Swings
Sometimes I'm just reading, minding my own business, when the oddest things smack me squarely in the forehead. For instance: As believers in faith and ritual over science, perhaps it's not surprising that they [Evangelical Christians, as it turns out] failed to heed the basic laws of physics. Most people understand that when a pendulum […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science
Tag-Cloudy Januaries
I am amused, sometimes delighted, occasionally perplexed, by tag clouds. Regardless, I had wanted to make my own. So today I found out about TagCrowd, and now I can make my own. About what? Well, the obvious answer is: about me. I'm still thinking of processing all the text from Bearcastle Blog, but that will […]
In: All, Reflections, Such Language!
abstemious & facetious
For years I have occasionally mentioned at appropriate points in conversation that there are two words in English that have one of each of the vowels in alphabetical order. One of them is "facetious", but I never could remember the second one, which rather spoiled the fun. Fortunately Miss Cellania came to the rescue today […]
Bush, like Ozymandias
The [2008 President's State of the Union] speech had an inescapable problem. It couldn't possibly address the question at hand – the actual state of the union. Costly and unending occupations. Economic recession. Unprecedented foreign indebtedness. Unsustainable trade deficits. A declining middle class. Millions about to lose their homes. Leading banks on the auction block. […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Current Events
Beginning Ideas
Last night was, as is traditional at our house, library night. In need of new ideas for books to read, I prepared myself by noting down some recommendations various people have provided more or less recently.* Some time back Bill reported hearing an author on the radio and thought I might find that author's book […]
In: All, Books, The Art of Conversation
Pansy Tough
Hypatia (at Pam's House Blend) told a nice story ("Lobbying in Richmond for LGBT rights with Equality Virginia") about her experience lobbying her Virginia legislature for LGBT equality. In its midst, she related this anecdote: On the way to our group photo on the front steps of the Capitol that Thomas Jefferson built, we passed […]
spamorass
The other day I was pondering some details of a project that I am considering getting started — the details don't really matter here except to know that the project would invite public participation through an automated web interface. Naturally, such an arrangement could very well become a spam magnet, so the system would have […]
Raymo on the Nature of Science
For science to be possible, we must make two assumptions: (1) That the world exists independently of our knowledge of it; and (2) that we can know the world with ever increasing verisimilitude. As obviously true as these statements might seem, in fact their veracity has been long and vigorously debated by philosophers. Nevertheless, they […]
In: All, Books, Common-Place Book
Homage to Fred
Oh, I've forgotten to mention, but just a few days ago someone arrived at this blog with the most amusing googlette. They searched for these words: Right Said Fred in Latex I'm afraid I had no idea whether the idea might be hot or not, but I did find the idea most provocative. (By the […]
Obama on Equality
We are told that those who differ from us on a few things are different from us on all things; that our problems are the fault of those who don't think like us or look like us or come from where we do. The welfare queen is taking our tax money. The immigrant is taking […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Current Events