Swans on Tea

Built on Facts: Failures of Cuteness in Physics
There’s a unit of cross-sectional area used in nuclear physics equal to a trillionth of a trillionth of a square centimeter. It’s roughly the cross-section of a heavy atomic nucleus, and it’s used to discuss interactions with incoming particles. You could say in some ways it’s a [...]

Invent, Invent, Invent
Innovation — science and engineering — is the key to a sustainable economy.
Lately, there has been way too much talk about minting dollars and too little about minting our next Thomas Edison, Bob Noyce, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Vint Cerf, Jerry Yang, Marc Andreessen, Sergey Brin, Bill Joy and Larry Page. Adding [...]

If at first you don’t succeed … Fry, fry again
The Oatman sidewalk egg fry. Cook your eggs, using the sun.
The egg fry began at high noon, with temperatures coming in at 105 degrees at the start of the event, slightly cooler than organizers and contestants would have liked. The spectators, though, were appreciative.
Perhaps the [...]