I had fun earlier this week talking science and science fiction with Jon del Arroz, leading Hispanic voice in science fiction, and with S. Misanthrope. Check out the discussion, here:
Science
39 posts
Here’s a press release from Q-Track on my recent discovery and publication… Cross-posted at Ratburger. Hans Physicists have long been troubled by the paradoxes and contradictions of quantum mechanics. Yesterday, a possible step forward appeared in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A. In a paper, “Energy velocity and […]
In 2002, astronomers noted that the Earth acquired a new “moon,” dubbed J002E3. Such orbits are unstable in the long run, due to the likelihood of interactions with the Earth and Moon perturbing the orbit of such a small object. As observational data continued to accumulate, it became obvious that […]
Five years ago this week, tornadoes swept through the Huntsville, Alabama area. Today, I look back on the disaster by reposting my May 30, 2011 account of how my family, business, and community fared: “ÆtherCzar is Back, Reporting on the North Alabama Tornadoes.” I have updated the post to remove […]
One great challenge in parenting is finding worthwhile educational videos. My kids prefer the zany antics of Phineas and Ferb to most anything with a wiff of being educational. That’s why I’m delighted to have found a great series that combines education with engaging entertainment for the whole family. How […]
Napoleon’s Buttons is not a history of chemistry but rather the story of how chemistry influenced history. Seventeen chapters detail how chemicals have played a crucial role in human development from ancient times to the present. A sampling of topics include: Spices and their role in trade, Ascorbic acid, scurvy […]
Harvard’s Natural Sciences Lecture Demonstrations team produced a remarkable video showing fifteen uncoupled pendulums. The pendulums were designed so as to have frequencies of 51 – 65 swings per minute. Over the course of a minute they go in and out of phase with each other. You’ll see them at […]
Saturday July 9 marks the centennial of John Archibald Wheeler’s birth. Wheeler pioneered the theory of nuclear fission along with Niels Bohr. He contributed to the Manhattan Project during the Second World War. Afterward, he led a revival of general relativity theory including coining such memorable terms as “wormholes” and […]
Time to clear out the link box… The Saga of the Scientific Swindler! (1884-1891) | Skulls in the Stars. Hat tip: BoingBoing Low Power Radio: FCC Enforcement Actions in the AM Band. 115-Year-Old Medical X-Ray Machine Comes Back to Life | Wired Science | Wired.com. How One Man Waged War […]
Ever had an interest in celestial mechanics? Then you have hours of fun in store from “My Solar System,” a celestial mechanics simulator from Michael Dubson at the University of Colorado. The web-based Java application includes a wide variety of preset simulations: Three body mechanics (sun-planet-moon and sun-planet-comet), Multiple planets, […]
The Pew Research Center collaborated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to create a Science Knowledge Quiz aiming to evaluate the scientific literacy of the American public. Click through to take the quick twelve question test. After the break I’ll explain how the Pew Center and […]
A hilarious parody of science reporting from the Guardian’s Martin Robbins: This is a news website article about a scientific finding
Radioactive decay rates are generally thought to be invariant constants of nature. Some minor temperature dependent effects have been observed, but even those remain elusive. Now however, researchers at Purdue and elsewhere argue that they have detected solar influences on radioactive decay rates. They claim the decay rates of certain […]
In 1905, an obscure patent clerk in Switzerland wrote four scientific papers, any one of which would have guaranteed his future fame. The clerk’s name was Albert Einstein. His four papers: proposed that energy exists in discrete levels called quanta (the photoelectric effect), demonstrated that the microscopic quiverings of small […]
I’ve been busy in the wake of Q-Track’s FLARE testing, so it’s about time to flush my queue of collected links. Without further ado, here are some links that may not merit a full post by themselves, but are still worth attention: A must read piece on America’s Ruling Class […]
So says Shikha Dalmia in Forbes. And kudos to the hard working Anthony Watt’s whose “Watt’s Up With That?” blog just celebrated 50,000,000 hits. His mix of polite, respectful, and insightful climate blogging draws a crowd. Only 49,995,000 more to go here to match his record!
A few additional updates on the ScienceBlogs debacle (sounds way better than “Pepsi-Gate”): Angry weighs in on the ScienceBlogs debacle with a web comic summary. A recently updated scorecard of who’s in and who’s out at ScienceBlogs from Skulls in the Stars. The “strike” has apparently been resolved. Luboš Motl […]
ScienceBlogs is a science oriented blog network and community. Among the prominent bloggers affiliated with Science Blogs are P.Z. Myers (Pharyngula) a prominent atheist/evolution/skeptic/biology blogger and Orac (Respectful Insolence), a leading medical news and information blogger. Earlier this month, Seed Media, owners of ScienceBlogs, added a new blog to their […]
Simon, posting at Classical Values offers a preview of a book Modern Physics is Rotting. The author, Prof. Johan F. Prins, has developed some interesting theories on superconductivity that are having difficulty breaking through peer review. I’m not sufficiently competent in solid sate physics to assess his scientific claims. However, […]
The centripetal force of the Earth’s rotation causes land and oceans alike to bulge out at the equator. But what would happen if the Earth were to stop spinning? The oceans would quickly adjust to the new equilibrium by surging to the poles, drowning everywhere outside of the temperate regions […]
John Herman Randall described Aristotle’s scientific investigation as “the passionate search for passionless truth.” Many histories of science fail to capture the passion for discovery that motivates most scientists in their work. Lucy Jago’s The Northern Lights: the true story of the man who unlocked the secrets of the aurora […]
In Sunday’s Guardian, Fred Pearce notes a benefit of “Climategate” is an increased acceptance of the need for scientists to be more upfront about uncertainties, and transparent in allowing access to raw data.
Keith Cooper reports on an intriguing new theory for why ET has not phoned us yet, in The Frugal Alien’s Beacon at Astronomy Now online. Hat tip: Richard Harris.
Writing over at Reason, Ronald Bailey highlights the recent article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science which purports to rank the merit of climate scientists based on the usual metrics of articles published and articles cited. Then those scientists’ position on the anthropological global warming (AGW) hypothesis […]