We have had an anomaly … we just had a problem with the vehicle on the pad.
This Isn't My Tenth Top-Ten List
Ten things you don’t know about the Earth
Destroying the Earth is hard
[…]
Even giant collisions can’t vaporize the planet. An object roughly the size of Mars impacted the Earth more than 4.5 billion years ago, and the ejected debris formed the Moon (the rest of the collider merged with the Earth). But the Earth wasn’t vaporized. Even smacking a whole planet into another one doesn’t destroy them!
They Don't Know They're Scientists
They’re just systematically figuring out how to beat the computer by figuring out the rules, via hypotheses and experimentation.
How Videogames Blind Us With Science
At one point, Steinkuehler met up with one of the kids who’d built the Excel model to crack the boss. “Do you realize that what you’re doing is the essence of science?” she asked.
He smiled at her. “Dude, I’m not doing science,” he replied. “I’m just cheating the game!”
Random Naughty Non-Physics Post
I won’t use the P-word, because it pops up (as it were) way too much in the search stats.
Love Bugs: Sex in the Insect World
The sex of the Southern Green Stink Bug, however, is almost indistinguishable to the untrained eye.
Oh, but to the trained eye …
Not the Same as Gauche
Central to banknote designs are Guilloche patterns, which can be created mechanically with a geometric lathe, or more likely these days, mathematically. The mathematical process attracted me immediately as I don’t have a geometric lathe and nor do I have anywhere to put one. I do, however, have a computer, and at the point I first started playing with the designs (mid-2004) Illustrator and Photoshop had gained the ability to be scripted.
via Kottke
Shape and the Single Photon
When you detect a photon, you can say where, when, and with what frequency it arrived, but before the measurement, these parameters are undefined. The photon’s existence is embodied in a wave function, which gives the probability of measuring the photon at any time, place, and frequency. The wave function for a single photon is usually a “wave packet”–nearly zero everywhere except in a narrow range of space and time. But as long as you don’t detect the photon directly, you can manipulate its wave function into any complicated shape, in theory.
Is This a Con Job?
Because this fire needs more fuel.
Why Girls Leave Science And Math – Confidence, Says Psychologist
The study confirmed that old stereotypes die slowly. Both boys and girls perceived that teachers thought boys were stronger at math and science. For boys this represented a support, while for girls it acted as a barrier.
Top barriers for all age groups and disciplines were test anxiety and subject difficulty. But these differed between boys and girls. In addition, the genders formed their perceptions of math or science based on the barriers and supports, but they often arrived at different views.
Ultimately, it’s perception, more than reality, that affects the person’s academic and career choices, says Fouad.
Ph'amazing
Top 10 physics videos (which constitutes a full rebuttal to the “Top 10 Amazing Chemical Reactions” I had linked to earlier, and had only rebutted with a single physics video, which is #5 on the list.)
You’ll also note that two of the so-called chemical reactions are properly classified as being in the physics videos (Meissner effect and breathing helium/sulphur hexafluoride). Ha! Take that, chemistry. You’re down to a top 8! (Without even arguing that floating a boat of air of the sulphur hexafluoride is a physics effect as well)
(Note the flash photography during the musical tesla coil video. Gee, I wonder if that helps?)
via The Great Beyond, which adds two Feynman drumming videos to the list. Wait, that’s twelve! Twelve videos! (A, ha, ha, ha. I love to count science videos!)
Low Budgment Day
Terminator 2 spoofed (sweded) and boiled down to six minutes.
via Mine