__________ This reminds me of that idiot, Walt Whitman, who thought his appreciation of the stars was so superior to the learn’d astronomer’s. The guy needed a pie in the face. But here’s the question: is good poetry (not AG’s) as enlightening, meaningful, or interesting as a walk on Mars — or any kind of […]
Abstruse Goose
Maybe I’ve just been reading too many scientific journals and too many memos from academics but I swear to God when I’m declared empress, my first edict is going to be, “Signal-to-noise! Raise the signal! Lower the noise!” ___________ http://abstrusegoose.com/380
Abstruse Goose’s little mouseover says, Please credit the original artist. And he’s right, it’s nice to look at the world as though it’s art. You can’t help but notice the original artist had great taste in color and in which colors to put together. Like, the night sky is the original setting for diamonds against […]
I was going to explain the connection between gravity, general relativity, and time. But I understand less than half of it and anyway, that’s not what our boy AG is really talking about here. He’s talking about coming to grand conclusions based on understanding less than half of something. And the guy he’s quoting, […]
Back at the end of the 19th century, when scientists were just discovering radioactivity and Marie Curie was trying to isolate radium, nobody knew what the effect of radioactivity on the human body might be. Radium was a new element, just a pretty blue glowing thing. Curie also wrote: “One of our joys was to go […]
I don’t have anything to add, except that I remember the day I learned that being where I was at that exact minute was highly improbable. I mean, I was there, right then, I was 100 percent probable. But if I’d calculated it ahead of time I’d have been as AG says, 0.000312 or something. […]
February 13 – 17 This week, we all showed a bit of ankle to commemorate Valentine’s Day (well, Cassie showed her toes) Guest poster Sarah Zielinski told us what we’ll find in “Pickering’s Harem” Richard got punked by Tom Cruise while explaining the differences (and similarities) between show biz and science Hogan faced Hayden in […]
To be honest, I’m not sure whether AG meant this to be about the loneliness of an over-specialized molecular biologist whose best friends are alcohol and a ficus plant; or about the reasons for that loneliness. If the latter, then he’d need look no further than the recent hoo-ha about research into terrorist viruses, or […]