About a month ago, I wrote a review of a play by David C. Cassidy about Farm Hall. Farm Hall was the English country house in which the British government, just after World War II, sequestered the German nuclear scientists they’d kidnapped. The scientists’ rooms were bugged, and their conversation was recorded and transcribed by […]
Physics
AG’s mouseover says that astronomers began charting the motions of the planets, continued through the law of gravitation, and ended up with us on the moon; so sure, the planets affect our lives. I have nothing to add. If I did, I’d probably end up telling you I read my horoscope every day. And that, […]
I received an email the other day from Nicholas Suntzeff, the director of the Astronomy Program at Texas A&M as well as a friend. (Readers might remember that he has published two guest posts with LWON.) His email was in fact a series of emails that he thought I might enjoy. It started with a […]
The news this past week that the IceCube Neutrino Observatory has fulfilled its mission by detecting neutrinos originating beyond the solar system reminds me of a story I once heard. I can’t reveal the source, though not out of a sense of journalistic responsibility. If anything, my discretion is due to journalistic irresponsibility: I don’t remember […]
For most of my life, I’ve been obsessed with plane crashes. It began when I was in first grade, and my dad and his squadron went to Turkey on TDY (temporary duty assignment — the military equivalent of a business trip). They were there to practice dropping bombs from their fighter jets. Dad qualified […]
Ben: OK, everyone. Forget Tesla. It’s time to start obsessing about Luis Alvarez. [That’s Luis Alvarez in the photo, standing in front of the Great Artiste. This post began, as so much in life does, with a Twitter conversation. Ben Lillie, a physicist and writer, began it; other people added to it. One of those […]
A couple of months ago astronomers reported the discovery of an unusual six-component “gravitational lens”—six images of the same object coming at us from slightly different positions in the sky. As light traveling across the universe passes a large mass, the gravity from the mass will serve as a kind of lens, bending the rays. […]
Time again to reach into the “Ask Mr. Cosmology” mailbag and see what readers want to know about . . . The Wonders of the Universe! Q: Why does the full moon look larger near the horizon than when it’s higher in the sky? Mr. Cosmology: Because it is. Q: What is the correct pronunciation of supernovae? Mr. Cosmology: Supernovae. […]