Abstruse Goose seems preoccupied with life paths and choices. This time instead of math, he’s talking about physics, specifically about a theory that the many worlds which according to quantum uncertainty (thus Schrodinger’s cats) can possibly exist, actually do co-exist side by side, maybe in different universes or something. I don’t know. It’s pretty arcane. […]
ZapperZ is a physics blogger who worries about people believing that humans and dinosaurs co-existed, that ghosts are real and evolution isn’t; and in short, that the public knowledge of and interest in science is thin as a dime. He met a scientist, a woman, who said the only way to explain science to politicians […]
I drove up to an auction in the Pennsylvania hayfields, parked in the field to the left because the lot to the right was reserved for buggies and horses. Maybe five auctions were going on in different parts of the fairground and everywhere were Amish in black and dark jewel-colored clothes, Mennonites in black and […]
Abstruse Goose sure has it in for athletes, doesn’t he. Fine with me. I’m less happy that he doesn’t arrange a life path for people who are born modestly, live modestly, work like dogs (actually not like any dog I’ve ever met, friendly mooches), have modest success and a gratifying life. Boy, is that ever […]
I grant this is just straight-up astroporn but let’s try to make it legit. It’s a picture taken in 2009 by the Hubble Space Telescope of NGC 3372, the great nebula in the constellation Carina, which is in the sky over the southern hemisphere. “Nebula” is an old astronomical word that has referred to a […]
In 2007, the Galaxy Zooites — 100,000 housewives, high school students, helicopter pilots, physicians, school teachers, truck drivers, secretaries, and a mobile home park manager from all over the world – got together on the internet under the guidance of some astronomers and classified galaxies. Galaxies tend to be either spirals or ellipticals, computers are […]
I’ve never understood how we go about ascribing character traits to animals. Every cat I’ve known fits Abstruse Goose’s checklist, but aren’t we both just making stuff up? No dog I ever had could remotely be described as “faithful” or “devoted;” they’re in it for the free lunch, period.
Heat rises, cold falls, and like a pan of soup on a hot stove, the earth boils, exceedingly slowly. The boiling is called convection: columns of heat rise from the earth’s hot core, move up through the viscous solidity of the mantle, cool at the crust, roll over and fall back down. The crust that […]
