This is the second in a series of old posts about space exploration in general, and the Bush Moon-and-Mars plan specifically. This is a repost of an old blog post from 2004, so any numbers or links in the post may be out of date. There were also a few comments to the original article,… Continue reading Classic Edition: The Arrogance of Complexity
Classic Edition: Man vs. Machine in Space
As threatened in passing yesterday, I dug up some old posts on space policy, and will re-post them here. This first one dates from January of 2004, around the time that Bush first floated the idea of the new Moon-and-Mars plan that’s re-shaping NASA. The original post has a ton of links in it, and… Continue reading Classic Edition: Man vs. Machine in Space
Let Us Now Praise Famous Scots
There’s a very nice article in the new Physics World in praise of James Clerk Maxwell of “Maxwell’s Equations.” Incredibly, Maxwell is probably somewhat underappreciated, what with wrapping up all of classical electromagnetism in one neat and Lorentz-invariant package, making pioneering contributions to thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, and taking the first color photograph, using basically… Continue reading Let Us Now Praise Famous Scots
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
If you can, consider throwing it to help with the maintenance of Mixed States and the other science-themed feed aggregators at Something Similar. Mixed States is back after a long absence (long enough that I had stopped checking), and it’s reminded me what an excellent resource this is. The proprietor is looking for $135 to… Continue reading Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
Imagine a Rocket in a Football Stadium Full of Jello…
That damn airplane-on-a-treadmill problem has come up again, thanks to the New York Times, aided and abetted by Boing Boing. For some reason, this problem inevitably produces very heated responses, such as this one. It doesn’t help that the problem is frequently mis-stated to explicitly have the airplane stading still relative to the ground. The… Continue reading Imagine a Rocket in a Football Stadium Full of Jello…
Science on the Tree 2
Here’s the second of a series of holiday photo-blog posts showing some of the ornaments we have, and providing explanations for how they’re really all about the science. It starts to get a little harder here: “Dude,” you say, “that’s a teapot. What does that have to do with science?”
Reducing the Application Pile
It’s job-hunting season in academia, so we’re not the only ones sifting through huge piles of applications looking for the One True Job Candidate. Clifford Johnson has his own pile of mail, and some suggestions for how to fix the process: Of the order of a decade ago I suggested (to nobody in particular, just… Continue reading Reducing the Application Pile
The Academic Scene
A few weeks ago, Ethan Zuckerman got wistful about collaboration: Dave Winer’s got a poignant thought over at Scripting News today: “Where is the Bronx Science for adults?” He explains that, as a kid, the best thing about attending the famous high school “was being in daily contact with really smart and creative people my… Continue reading The Academic Scene
Extended Shifts Lead to Medical Errors
Surprising approximately no-one outside the medical profession, Eurekalert today features a press release about a paper showing that doctors on long shifts make more mistakes: The study, published in PLoS Medicine, which was led by Charles Czeisler and Laura Barger from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, included 2737 medical residents, who completed… Continue reading Extended Shifts Lead to Medical Errors
Snarkin’ Across the Universe
Monte Davis, of “Thinking Clearly About Space” has another snarky look at overblown space enthusiasm, providing a helpful taxonomy of X-Treme Spacers: Alt.Tech Chemical rockets have let you down: after decades of gritty engineering they remain expensive and trouble-prone. It’s time to start over with a space elevator, deployed by laser launch and magnetic catapult.… Continue reading Snarkin’ Across the Universe