February 17, 2010
You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat. -Albert…
February 16, 2010
It is marvelous indeed to watch on television the rings of Saturn close; and to speculate on what we may yet find at galaxy's edge. But in the process, we have lost the human element; not to mention the high hope of those quaint days when flight would create ''one world.'' Instead of one world, we…
February 14, 2010
It says 'I Choo-choo-choose You,' and there's a picture of a train! -Ralph Wiggum
Ahh, Valentine's Day. What do you think of when you think of it? Do you think of a sweet sentiment about someone dear to you? (Song credit: If I Could by Storyhill.)
Do you maybe think of the vast commercialization…
February 12, 2010
However time may be measured at the Naval Observatory, the clock seems to tick slowly here when Congress is out of town. -Richard Corrigan
The following is the mostly true (but somewhat fictionalized) story of the first clocks in the Americas. In the 17th Century, the finest clockmakers in the…
February 10, 2010
The New Age? It's just the old age stuck in a microwave oven for fifteen seconds. -James Randi
About two weeks ago, the WMAP (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) team released their seven-year results, and I'm finally ready to tell you all about it. WMAP, remember, is this guy.
By looking at two…
February 8, 2010
Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one's potential. -Bruce Lee
It isn't only our heros that expand and grow; the Universe does that, too! In the first…
February 7, 2010
Here in the United States, it's Super Bowl Sunday, and the Colts play the Saints for the championship of our National Football League. We listen to music that pumps us up,
we eat lots of food (it's the second highest day for food consumption behind Thanksgiving),
and -- of course -- we watch…
February 4, 2010
What we know about Pluto today could fit on the back of a postage stamp. -Colleen Hartman
Part of the joy of astronomy is, every once in a while, you just get an astoundingly beautiful new picture or video of a foreign planet, star, galaxy or cluster. Pluto, the most distant planet, is among the…
February 3, 2010
Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending. -Maria Robinson
In parts one and two, we covered the very beginning of the Universe as we know it. Specifically, we talked about inflation, which is the process that sets up the Big Bang. Inflation -- to…
February 1, 2010
I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore! -Howard Beale
Let me tell you a little story. Nine years ago, I was living in California, and I had a car accident. The damage to my car was pretty bad; the first estimate I got said that it would take about $3800 to fix it, more than the…
January 29, 2010
Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are even stupider! -George Carlin
Over at The Onion, I found this article about science on television, and I laughed too hard to not reproduce it here. (Link to original.)
Science Channel Refuses To Dumb Down Science Any…
January 28, 2010
We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started... and know the place for the first time. -T.S. Eliot
Yesterday, President Obama delivered his first State of the Union Address, and talked about a number of things that ranged from inspiring to…
January 27, 2010
Blue flower, red thorns! Blue flower, red thorns! Blue flower, red thorns! Oh, this would be so much easier if I wasn't color-blind! -Donkey, from Shrek
Earlier this week, I introduced you to the Red Controversy, the observations recorded around 2000 years ago in Europe asserting that the star,…
January 25, 2010
Artists can color the sky red because they know it's blue. Those of us who aren't artists must color things the way they really are or people might think we're stupid.-Jules Feiffer
Last semester, I was teaching my introduction to astronomy class, and part of the coursework was that each student…
January 24, 2010
There are plenty of examples in the music world where a cover of a song is strikingly different from the original and still interesting. Take the song You Spin Me Round, which cracked the top 5 all over Europe and North America when Dead or Alive released it. (Click for video.) 15 years later,…
January 22, 2010
To most outsiders, modern mathematics is unknown territory. Its borders are protected by dense thickets of technical terms; its landscapes are a mass of indecipherable equations and incomprehensible concepts. Few realize that the world of modern mathematics is rich with vivid images and provocative…
January 20, 2010
I'm always happy to receive questions from those of you interested enough to ask them, and every once in a while one of them feels just right to write up an article about it. Today's comes from Brad Walker, who asks about the inside of gas giants. Specifically,
The question pertains to the insides…
January 18, 2010
There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened. -Douglas Adams
We…
January 17, 2010
Yes, these three ingredients mixed together amused me more than anything else that happened this week. Don't know what I'm talking about?
American Idol -- kicking off Season 9 -- gave us Pants on the Ground, a song written and performed by a 62 year old man who's sick and tired of seeing these…
January 15, 2010
This is what science is all about; getting thrown a curveball by Nature and plunging in to find out what's going on. -Andy Albrecht
Imagine waking up in the morning and heading out into the sand dunes. They never look exactly the same from day to day. But each day that you go out, they'll look…
January 13, 2010
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. -Aldous Huxley
People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs. -Anonymous
Over at The World's Fair, the question of belief in science arose with the provocative question, "Do you believe in the Big Bang?"…
January 12, 2010
There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth... not going all the way, and not starting. -Siddhārtha Gautama, a.k.a. Buddha
Last week, I started a new series on The Greatest Story Ever Told, about the origin and evolution of the Universe. In it, I asserted that inflation is the very…
January 8, 2010
Darn it! I'm sick and tired of being a scarecrow! Charles Atlas says he can give me a real body. All right! I'll gamble a stamp and get his free book!
-Countless Magazine and Comic Book Ads
Last weekend, Abbie over at ERV proclaimed herself the fittest person on Scienceblogs, and one of my readers…
January 8, 2010
The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming.-Freeman Dyson
When we look out at our Universe today, we see all sorts of beautiful things throughout space, from galaxies and clusters,…
January 6, 2010
The Sun stood still and the Moon stayed -- and hastened not to go down about a whole day! -Joshua 10:12-13
Did you have a good New Year's Eve? Did you enjoy not just the fireworks and champagne, but also the Blue Moon (2nd full Moon of the month) that was out that night?
Were you in a fortunate…
January 4, 2010
Cheers to a New Year and another chance for us to get it right. -Oprah
Welcome to 2010, everybody! I know that many of you have been following my writing for some time, and many of you have just started recently, so I'd like to start the New Year off right, and (re)introduce myself and this blog to…
January 2, 2010
Things slow down when it snows everywhere. They did when I lived in New York, Chicago, and Madison, WI, and for good reason. There are a few basic rules about driving in snow that everybody adheres to, including being knowledgeable about what your vehicle can and cannot handle. It's a pain, but it…
December 31, 2009
Blue Moon
You knew just what I was there for
You heard me saying a prayer for
Someone I really could care for... -Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart
Tonight is the last night of 2009, there's a full Moon, there's a sliver of a partial lunar eclipse, and it's the second full Moon this month.
Q: Does…
December 30, 2009
Oh the weather outside is frightful,
But the fire is so delightful,
And since we've no place to go,
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! -Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne
Yesterday in the late afternoon (and yes, it's dark by late afternoon here in Portland, OR), I looked out the window and saw a rare…
December 28, 2009
Watch me as I gravitate (hahahahaha). -Gorillaz
Gravity -- unbelievably -- is the weakest force of all. But if you get enough mass together, gravity will overwhelm even the strongest outside influence. A simple case-in-point? You take a rock that's massive enough, and gravity will crush it into a…
