Archive for the ‘It’s Only Rocket Science’ Category
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
Sing a Song of Science
As so often happens, this began innocently enough. It all started on Monday, when a friend of mine sent me a YouTube link, claiming that he had found the prefect theme song for Ars Hermeneutica's Sun Truck project. Indeed he may have done. The song was called "Why the Sun Shines?". Fans of the group […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Music & Art
The "Cells" in Cell Phones
Isaac & I returned home yesterday, flying from Kansas City (central standard time) to Washington, DC (eastern standard time). As we arrived at the gate in DC, I overheard this conversational exchange from the seats in front of mine: Mother: Oh, look! My cell phone has changed back to eastern time. Teen-age son: That's because […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science
The Sun Truck: First Appeal
It's that time of year again, so here I am with my second annual year-end appeal for Ars Hermeneutica, Limited. With this appeal I want to keep things brief and stick to one topic. Ars Hermeneutica started work in 2007 on its first informal science-education project. The project is The Sun Truck. You can find […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Personal Notebook
Schermer on Science
Science is not a thing, it's a verb. [Michael Schermer, "Why People Believe Weird Things (video)" TED.com, February 2006.]
In: All, Common-Place Book, It's Only Rocket Science
A Moebius Ballet
I learned about it from Science News Online (here), but evidently it has been on its way to becoming a mini-phenomenon since it was posted on YouTube in June, 2007. It's a short animation of some mathematical concepts, called "Moebius Transformations Revealed". To quote from the creators' website (here): Möbius Transformations Revealed is a short […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science
On Luis Alvarez
From this week's Physics News Update* a note about physicist Luis Alvarez, to whom all things were interesting. In case you've ever wondered about the source of the hypothesis that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteorite, read on. EGYPTIAN PYRAMIDS, DINOSAUR EXTINCTION, THE JFK ASSASSINATION: all were studied by Berkeley physicist Luis Alvarez. […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, The Art of Conversation
Relativistic Thermodynamics
While some vaguely scientific notions are passing through my head, here's a clipping from Physics News. It came as a bit of a surprise to me. I spent most of my laboratory research life doing stuff that came, in one way or another, under the general heading of "thermodynamics", and yet it never occurred to […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science
Bubbles Big and Small
Bubbles seem to be on the net's mind today. I haven't kept all the references (here's one: "Scientists map near-Earth space bubbles") but it seemed that I kept reading things involving bubbles. Now, I've long been fascinated by bubbles although, despite my being a scientist with a history of doing some hydrodynamics and a relatively […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science
More Undular Bores
For those who enjoyed the pictures a few days ago of undular bores — atmospheric waves visible in clouds — here are a few more treats via NASA's Earth Observatory project. This time the waves are in the atmosphere off the west coast of Africa, in a couple of satellite photos captured by the Moderate […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science
Undular Bores
Here is "Science @ NASA" again, sending me another interesting story with pretty pictures. This one — they say for shock value — is about "undular bores". What they're talking about is waves in the atmosphere that show up dramatically in cloud patterns. I have a personal interest in all things waves because they were […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science
Titanic Lakes
This just in from "Science @ NASA": Newly assembled radar images from the Cassini spacecraft are giving researchers their best-ever view of hydrocarbon lakes and seas on the north pole of Saturn's moon Titan, while a new radar image reveals that Titan's south pole also has lakes. Approximately 60 percent of Titan's north polar region […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science
More Meteors
From SpaceWeather.com (an outreach program of NOAA, by the way), comes news of another meteor shower. Hooray! Here's the blurb: In recent nights, sky watchers have noticed meteors shooting out of the constellation Orion. This signals the beginning of the annual Orionid meteor shower caused by space dust from Halley's Comet. The shower is feeble […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science
My Sputnik Childhood
I nearly let pass this notable milestone: 50 years ago today the Soviet Union* launched the first artificial Earth-satellite, called Sputnik. It was a tiny thing — suitable I suppose to being the first baby of the birth of the space age — just 24 inches across and weighing only 184 pounds. It was made […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Reflections
Two More Bites of Pi
I can't help myself now. I've just read through another paper by some of the -algorithm people*, and they provide two fascinating equations from the history of computing . Although they have been used in practice, my purpose here is just to look at them in amazement. This first one is an odd and ungainly […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science
Why Pi?
As a little gloss to the previous entry on calculating π, I'm finally reading the entertaining and enlightening article "The Quest for Pi" and find this unique observation after asking why people persist in calculating π to billions of digits: Certainly there is no need for computing π to millions or billions of digits in […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, It's Only Rocket Science
A Big Piece of Pi
How innocently it all begins, sometimes. For some reason a day or two ago I decided I would take a few google-moments and look into modern computational formulæ that are use to calculate the value of . What a loaded question that turned out to be! Before I'd reached a point to pause and write […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science
Approaching Mars
Before I even get that ridiculous e-mail about how Mars will soon look as big as the moon because of a close approach by the Earth, here's a note from NASA: August 21, 2007: By the time you finish reading this sentence, you'll be 25 miles closer to the planet Mars. Earth and Mars are […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science
Worth Staying Up
NASA alerts me that the upcoming Perseids meteor shower, on 12 August, may be particularly good this year, largely because it's the evening of the full moon: "It's going to be a great show," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center. "The Moon is new on August 12th–which […]