Looking for Math in all the Wrong Places

I ran a cross some comments over at A Quantum Diaries Survivor, in a book review, that raised my eyebrows (note that I haven’t read the book being reviewed and I’m not specifically commenting on the author in question):

However, after a first quick look, I was left wondering about the soundness of my pre-judgement. For one thing, the book contained no formulas at all. I mean none, not even a few. This did not quite fit the crackpot idea I had put together.

Which runs counter to my experience on science discussion-boards (SFN and others). Many crackpots, in my experience, want nothing to do with math. They run away as fast as they can from any suggestion that they quantify things. The ones that do show math, generally, either can’t do it, and fall prey to the simple mistakes that you find in 1+1=1 “proofs,” or their work is a mishmash of numerology.

Space is Full of Crap

Space is Full of Crap. Literally.

The European Space Agency has just released images showing all the satellites and human-made debris now orbiting space as a result of 51 years of launching stuff since Sputnik. That’s about 6,000 satellites up there—of which only 800 remain operational—plus thousands of other objects from launches and accidents. According to their mindblowing simulations things are getting a lot worse:

About 50 percent of all trackable objects are due to in-orbit explosion events (about 200) or collision events (less than 10).