Category Archives: science

science

Stunning Technology!

Voyager 1 is one of the most successful space missions of all time. (See the Bad Astronomy blog and NASA for lots more detail.) Launched in 1977, it visited Jupiter and then Saturn, providing better close-ups of the two planets than had ever been seen before. But it sailed on, crossing the orbits of both Uranus and Neptune (its sister, Voyager 2, actually flew by these two planets). Now after 33 years, it is 17 billion kilometres (10.6 billion miles) from the Sun and has reached the point where the solar wind has slowed to a stop. In another 3-4 years it will truly be in interstellar space and entirely beyond the sun’s influence.

Just imagine! Voyager was built and launched before personal computers were everywhere (it was 4 years before IBM PC was announced), before cell phones were a commodity and when the internet was still a research and defence tool! It is based on Z80 (remember the Sinclair ZX80?) and/or 1807 computer chips. It is still phoning home to send back streams of useful data and its battery/power supply is expected to last until 2025 – that’ll be almost 50 years in service! Even more amazing is the thought that Voyager 1 has already been flying for almost a third of the time since the Wright Brothers first heavier than air flight in 1903.

And Voyager 1’s sister Voyager 2 is doing much the same, but flying in a totally different direction. What’s more earlier this year engineers reset the software in Voyager 2 to correct a fault which was corrupting its data transmissions. And that’s with a transmission delay of around 15 hours! – so 15 hours for the signal to reach Voyager and at least another 15 hours before you know if its received and working.

On top of that these two spacecraft are fractionally not where they should be according to our best theories of ballistics. That in itself is proving to be interesting new science as the cosmologists try to understand why this is.

As one a commenter at Bad Astronomy says:

I’m not sure what’s most amazing – that this machine is still working after 30 years in deep space (hell, how many machines do you know that can work non-stop without maintenance for 30 years in a nice warm garage?), the incredible distance that this probe has brought our eyes to by proxy, the fact that it’s literally leaving the breath of the sun behind and venturing into the still coldness of interstellar space, or the fact that we can actually communicate with the probe over such distances.

However you look at it this is some stunning achievement!

history, science

Stunning Lego Archaeology

If you’re interested in archaeology, history, science, engineering or Lego go read the unbearable lightness of LEGO.

I knew about the Antikythera Mechanism, a supposed 2000 year old Greek computing machine recovered from an ancient shipwreck in 1900. But I didn’t know anyone had worked out in such detail what it did, let alone built a working model – in Lego!

The Cocktail Party Physics piece, and the videos etc. it links to, tell more of the story.

It’s a fascinating read even though I still have this sinking feeling the mechanism is going to turn out to be one of those elaborate Victorian hoaxes. Hope I’m wrong, though.

amusements, quotes, science

Defining the Normal

From the Feedback column of New Scientist, 4 December 2011 …

Composing witty error messages has long been one of the ways […] in which geeks try to show their human side. We’re not so sure what species of side is exhibited by the geeks responsible for the nLab, a website devoted to “collaborative work on Mathematics, Physics and Philosophy” in the context of “category theory”, which is … er … a set of mathematical tools for describing general abstract structures in mathematics and relations between them. And the general abstract relations between those relations, and so on up …

It is perhaps inevitable that the holding page they have prepared for times when the nLab site isn’t working […] announces that it is […]

“currently experiencing some difficulties due to local fluctuations in reality. The Lab Elves are working hard to patch reality. In the meantime, edits on the nLab have been temporarily disabled since the fundamentals of mathematics may vary during these spasmodic variations. Normal service will be restored once we are sure what ‘normal’ is.”

beliefs, medical, personal, quotes, science

Quotes of the Week

Just three this week …

It is good to rub and polish your mind against that of others.
[Michel de Montaigne]

Our life depends on others so much that at the root of our existence is a fundamental need for love. That is why it is good to cultivate an authentic sense of responsibility and concern for the welfare of others.
[Dalai Lama]

I’m selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I’m out of control and at times I’m hard to handle, but if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.
[Marliyn Monroe]

beliefs, quotes, science

Quotes of the Week

This week’s rather scrawny crop …

When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign – that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.
[Jonathan Swift]

The more we learn about irrational beliefs, the clearer it becomes that they are perfectly normal
[Editorial, New Scientist, 13/11/2010]

You can’t have a light without a dark to stick it in.
[Arlo Guthrie]

You are not what you were born, but what you have it in yourself to be.
[From the film Kingdom of Heaven (2005)]

amusements, current affairs, history, quotes, science

Quotes of the Week

Thin pickings again this week, partly I suspect as I’ve not been reading as much due to this ****ing cold I can’t get rid of. Anyway here are the best four …

Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority.
[Thomas Huxley]

She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit.
[Somerset Maugham]

War divides pretty neatly into the twin activities of “fighting” and “running away”.
[Ben Miller; The Times, Eureka; 11/2010]

Do you realize if it weren’t for Edison we’d be watching TV by candlelight?
[Al Boliska]

science, sexuality, thoughts

Wanky Science

Those of you who share my convictions about the importance of openness in sexuality and body image my like to read this short article on the Science of Masturbation from Newsweek.

The basic tenet of the article is that there is a lot of scientific evidence that masturbation is good for the species and for passing on your genes – and that isn’t a counter-intuitive as it sounds. Unfortunately, and despite being written by a woman, the article deals almost exclusively with male masturbations; you girlies get only a paragraph at the end.

Even if you don’t share my convictions you maybe ought to read it – it may change your views. And if you have boy children it may help you (and them) come to appreciate and understand something which is an important part of male sexuality and not something to be hidden in the broom cupboard.

amusements, current affairs, medical, quotes, science, thoughts

Quotes of the Week

A rich vein of quotes this week. Here are some of the best …

A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled.
[Sir Barnett Cocks]

It is a primitive form of thought that things either exist or do not exist.
[Sir Arthur Eddington]

We [doctors] do things, because other doctors do so and we don’t want to be different, so we do so; or because we were taught so [by teachers, fellows and residents]; or because we were forced [by teachers, administrators, regulators, guideline developers] to do so, and think that we must do so; or because the patient wants so, and we think we should do so; or because of more incentives [unnecessary tests (especially by procedure oriented physicians) and visits], we think we should do so; or because of the fear [by the legal system, audits] we feel that we should do so [so called covering oneself]; or because we need some time [to let nature take its course], so we do so; finally and more commonly, that we have to do something [justification] and we fail to apply common sense, so we do so.
[MS Parmar, “We do things because”, British Medical Journal Rapid Response, 2004, March 1 quoted in Imogen Evans, Hazel Thornton & Iain Chalmers, Testing Treatments: Better Research for Better Healthcare]

A wise man makes his own decisions; an ignorant man follows public opinion.
[Chinese proverb]

I am proud that our country remains the scourge of the oppressed. Freedom is once again on the march, as the good people of America join together to wave it goodbye.
GEORGE W BUSH
[Craig Brown; The Lost Diaries]

Born to American-Indian parents, he spent his formative years in abject poverty in Ireland, nibbling on crusts in a tepee in the exclusive slum area of Limerick. Though there were no books in the family home, he occupied his childhood reading the tepee’s assembly instructions over and over again, and in this way gained an unsurpassed command of the English language, as evidenced by his early Tepee Trilogy: Lay the Fabric Flat (1968), With the Long Side Facing Up (1972) and Now Set the Pole in an Upright Position (1975).
[Craig Brown; dust-jacket of The Lost Diaries]

Maturity is only a short break in adolescence.
[Jules Feiffer]

Marriage isn’t a passion-fest; it’s more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane, and often boring non-profit business. And I mean this in a good way.
[Lori Gottlieb]