August 26 – 30 What is a writer to do, wonders guest Laura Dattaro, when she realizes that all the members of JPL’s Curiosity team are, every single one of them, women? Point it out? Pretend she’s not surprised? Shrug, because why not? A young immigrant woman gets sick of her work conditions, enlists the […]
Physicists, like the ancient Greeks, like to gossip about their gods. A few days ago, three physicists* were talking on Twitter** about a review by a fourth physicist, Freeman Dyson, of a biography of one of these gods, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and about his war with another one, John Archibald Wheeler. Physicist #1: Oppenheimer did […]
Ann: In the last year or more or so, science writers have had Twitterfights with a culture/media writer, a nonfiction writer, and a script writer. After the latest fight another science writer, the wise and civilized Dan Vergano of USA Today, Twitter-messaged me that he wished these fights would stop because they reinforced the walls […]
Physicists do say these things about quantum mechanics — a highly-mathematical description of fundamental reality at the bottom of which is the uncertainty principle in which the act of measuring one piece of reality screws up other measurements. The upshot is, the whole of reality isn’t measureable all at once. The more you think about […]
July 15 – 19 I got all irate on Twitter, as did a number of other folks, and nothing good came of it — the argument looked like it was made of fireflies. Why did mankind take so long to come up with this? the Erik Vance Restaurant Guide to Saving the Oceans. Guest Robin […]
Why are the clouds moving so fast? Is the wind that’s pushing the clouds faster than the wind that’s blowing the trees? I remember, back when I lived in tornado country, hearing that when the winds aloft and the winds on the ground were moving in different directions, a tornado could form. Was that true? […]
1) The Lucasian throne is the Lucasian Chair, a funded and highly honored academic position at Cambridge University that is famous, partly because it’s currently held by Stephen Hawking and partly because its first holder was Isaac Newton. 2) Who, as you know, invented/discovered the law of gravity. Translating that equation up there, the force […]
A consolation for Cameron, for Mary Caperton Morton, and for so many of us: at least the bugger can’t fly. __________ http://abstrusegoose.com/161
