I just realized that I’ve passed my Third Blogoversary! Google tells me that three is the Leather Anniversary, which sounds pretty kinky.
I’ll take this opportunity to invite regular visitors who are inclined to leave a comment to give a short summary of who you are/what you do. Do did you come for the physics and stay for the silly posts, or was it the other way around?
Bill “God-of-the-Gaps” O’Reilly. Here’s a follow-on to his bewilderment on how tides work. As long as there is one thing that science can’t explain (or he doesn’t understand), all is well with his world. It’s amazing to me that this argument makes sense to him.
Skulls in the Stars: Taking flight on light
I’ve blogged about the YORP effect, but didn’t have a chance to comment on this new result with optical lift, which is way cool. Short version is this — it’s similar to the gradient force, but the target provides the effect of a gradient rather than the beam needing to do so, which means that the beam can be uniform and you will still get lift.