Archive for the ‘It’s Only Rocket Science’ Category
Exponential Dracula
Herewith, from the popular press, an excellent example of geometric (exponential) growth and its implications: WASHINGTON (AP) — It may be the season for vampires, ghosts and zombies. Just remember, they're not real, warns physicist Costas Efthimiou. […] Efthimiou takes out the calculator to prove that if a vampire sucked one person's blood each month […]
In: All, Curious Stuff, It's Only Rocket Science
Fairy-Tale Astronomy
In a way it's hardly worth the bother to describe the background to this tidbit, which is a headline to a "Search and Discovery" item in this month's Physics Today.* The story concerns type Ia supernovae, which are white dwarf stars that make their startling brightness by accreting enough mass to ignite the fusion of […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Laughing Matters
Farewell to James Van Allen
Physics* tends to carry around all manner of homages to its creators and discoverers. Vast numbers of units of measure, constants, concepts, equations, effects, principles, and laws are named for famous scientists: Galilean Relativity, Newton's Laws of Motion, Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion, Bernoulli's Equation, Euler's Equation, Laplace's Equation, Boltzmann's Constant, Planck's Constant, Hubble's Constant, […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science
Singing Sand Dunes
From Physics News Update,* I found this item (given entire below) of interest, no doubt because it touches on several sub-disciplines of physics that used to attract my research interest. DUNE TUNES. For centuries, world travelers have known of sand dunes that issue loud sounds, sometimes of great tonal quality. In the 12th century Marco […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science
Three New Things
Three items in this week's issue of "What's New", by Bob Park,* amused me enough to share. That I found these amusing may tell you more about me than anything.# 1. ABC PRIMETIME: WAKE UP ABC, IT'S THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY! Here's the scene: Adam Dreamhealer is a normal 19 year-old, who wears an earring, has […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Laughing Matters
The Sun & The Moon
I have a friend upon whom I can rely to send me, with some regularity, unbelievable photos and incredible stories, most of which turn out in the end to be fabricated photos and urban legends. Someplace in the forwarding of these things, someone will often add a wishy-washy "I don't know if this is true, […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science
Mystical Time
Not to harp on the innumeracy thing (although — plug time! — it is part of the mission of Ars Hermeneutica), but I'm a little irritated. You see, I keep seeing people for the last few days pointing out, in e-mail and on their blogs*, that on 5 April something unusual is going to happen. […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science
But Is It Science?
It is not often that I laugh out loud while reading court decisions. True, I may smile at a clever argument or an adept turn of phrase, or maybe chuckle over displays of willful stupidity; however, cackling is not a common response for me. Today I'm finally giving a first read to Judge Jones' decision […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Laughing Matters
All In Perspective
From a report about Exxon's latest record earnings*, this extraordinary statement For the full year, net income surged to $5.71 per share from $3.89 per share in 2004. Annual revenue grew to $371 billion from $298.04 billion. To put that into perspective, Exxon's revenue for the year exceeded Saudi Arabia's estimated 2005 gross domestic product […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Splenetics
Two Physics Questions
Angry Professor at "A Gentleman's C" asked two questions that caught my attention: Is there a difference between an electromagnetic field and an electromagnetic wave? Why does the addition of particle detectors in the two-slit experiment cause the collapse of the wavefunction? Good, physics type questions. Naturally I started thinking about answers. I was finally […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science
Feeling a Little Derivative
I knew a mathematician who had a recurrent dream. He dreamt that he was a partial derivative. [Jeremy Bernstein, A Theory for Everything (Singer-Verlag, New York, 1996), p. 263.] This quotation no doubt tells you more about me than I expect, but when I read it I found it terribly funny. I also have the […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Laughing Matters
Lunar Abundance
Not so long ago, people were getting all excited about whether there might be a new planet for the solar system*, and now it seems that there are to be a new moon or two for Pluto. A NASA press release# (which has accompanying photographs showing the moons) describes things this way: Pluto was discovered […]
In: All, Curious Stuff, It's Only Rocket Science
Primates & Judicial Philosophy
Despite my proddings, some of you may still not read Bob Park's "What's New". But that's okay, since I tend to put the best bits here anyway. Recently he solicited readers' questions that might be suitable for appropriately probing the thoughts and positions of Supreme Court nominees regarding science. This week he revealed "the question […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Laughing Matters
Frontiers of the Mind
New frontiers of the mind are before us, and if they are pioneered with the same vision, boldness, and drive with which we have waged this war [i.e., World War II] we can create a fuller and more fruitful employment and a fuller and more fruitful life. — President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in a letter […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, It's Only Rocket Science
Ascent of Science
I recently finished reading the massive but excellent book The Ascent of Science, by Brian L. Silver (Oxford University Press, New York, 1998). I had noted many passages that caught my eye as I read, and have shared some. As usual, I got behind, so here are the remainders. Linnaeus, in 1735, commented, "It is […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, It's Only Rocket Science
Science as Nuisance
From the beginning, the Bush White House has treated science as a nuisance and scientists as an interest group—one that, because it lies outside the governing conservative coalition, need not be indulged. That's why the White House-sometimes in the service of political Christianism or ideological fetishism, more often in obeisance to baser interests like the […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, It's Only Rocket Science
Miller's Skepticism
But science is more than the sum of its hypotheses, its observations, and its experiments. From the point of view of rationality, science is above all its method–essentially the critical method of searching for errors. It is the staunch devotion of science to this method that makes the difference. […*] It took Popper's genius to […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, The Art of Conversation
What Gödel Didn't Say
What is it about Gödel's theorem that so captures the imagination? Probably that its oversimplified plain-English form–"There are true things which cannot be proved"–is naturally appealing to anyone with a remotely romantic sensibility. Call it "the curse of the slogan": Any scientific result that can be approximated by an aphorism is ripe for misappropriation. The […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, The Art of Conversation
Herps, Gait, & the Invention of Clothes
Today's reading from Richard Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 2004) touches on several topics (as I catch a bit on the lunch-time notes). [Speaking of naming types of animals:] Yet another informal grade name, favoured by American zoologists, is 'herp'. Herpetology is the study of reptiles (except birds) and amphibians. 'Herp' is a […]
In: All, Curious Stuff, It's Only Rocket Science
Platypus Billsight
Two selections from today's reading in Richard Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 2004) The point is that the platypus bill is not just a pair of jaws for dabbling and feeding, as in a duck. It is that too, though it is rubbery rather than horny like a duck's bill. But far more […]
In: All, Curious Stuff, It's Only Rocket Science