"In physical science a first essential step in the direction of learning any subject is to find principles of numerical reckoning and practicable methods for measuring some quality connected with it. I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind: it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.
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Science
Submitted by cvining on
All we are is dust in the cosmic wind, from fricking 2 billion miles away! The fastest object ever made by man (the NASA Parker Solar Probe) has reached only 400,000 mph and would take 3,350 BILLION YEARS to get to where this blast came from (even if it's were going in the right direction). And the big bang was less than 14 billion years ago.
It's genuinely difficult to get one's mind around the scale of this cosmic event which, from that mind boggling distance, shredded our ozone layer, however briefly. It may be worth pondering the distances and massive energy involved.
Submitted by cvining on
Bernd T. Matthias was my academic grandfather as he was thesis advisor my thesis advisor, Robert N Shelton. I was in the same room as Matthias only a few times and never had so much as a conversation with him. Even so he had a strong influence on me, and I'm grateful for that. I thought I would put down some of the stories I remember about him.
Submitted by cvining on
To: puzzles@penroseinstitute.com
Subject: This Puzzle Is Not Even Wrong
Dear Prof. Penrose and the Penrose Institute,
Submitted by cvining on
By now everyone has heard of the recent detection of gravitational waves produced by two black holes colliding a billion miles away. By the time those waves reached us here on Earth they moved us (you, me, everything, the entire planet) a tiny fraction of the diameter of a proton. A. Proton. Not a fraction of an atom. A tiny, tiny fraction of a proton.
Submitted by cvining on
Prince Rupert's Drop is a piece of glass formed by droping the liquid glass directly into cold water. The resulting piece of glass is highly stressed, so much so that the whole thing eplodes when the delicate tip is broken. At the same time, the larger bulb is extremely strong, able to survive striking by a hammer. Pretty fun physics. Here's a nice video on the subject:
Further details, and the home of the above video is here, and a…
Submitted by cvining on
"Physicist Brian Cox of the BBC Two program Human Universe recently visited the world’s largest vacuum chamber at NASA’s Space Power Facility outside of Sandusky, Ohio, to …
Submitted by cvining on
I heard today there are some 3 billion internet users in the world. I've heard similar numbers before, but when I heard it today I thought: hey! There's only a bit over 2 billion Christians! Maybe Science is winning this thing after all! Particularly when you consider Christ had a nearly 2000 year head start!
But here's really why I'm writing. Pull up this web page:
Submitted by cvining on
From the B612 Foundation:
Between 2000 and 2013, a network of sensors that monitors Earth around the clock listening for the infrasound signature of nuclear detonations detected 26 explosions on Earth ranging in energy from 1 to 600 kilotons – all caused not by nuclear explosions, but rather by asteroid impacts. These findings were recently released from the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization, which operates the network.
Submitted by cvining on
Everyone talks about Bigfoot, but nobody ever does anything about them. Until now.
The Olympia Beer, the brewing company is offering a very generous $1,000,000 for "irrefutable evidence" for the existence of Bigfoot. They've set the bar pretty high. You need DNA and visual proof of a live physical body. Basically hair and a photo.
I'll post again if I hear about an award being made. Here's the full story:
Submitted by cvining on
Get the latest Endnote Export "style" for RIS:
Get the latest endnote "Reference Manager (RIS) Export" style ( RefMan (RIS) Export.ens ) from: http://www.endnote.com/support/enstyles.asp
The version dated 9/22/2008 is here: ftp://support.isiresearchsoft.com/pub/pc/styles/endnote4/RefMan%20(RIS)…
The version original to my Endnote 9 didn't export PDF files at all