August 2007
38 posts
July 2007
24 posts
“Our goal is to improve science literacy for life”
—Brian Bartel
Checkers is solved; it's a draw →
cs.ualberta.ca
The game of checkers has roughly 500 billion billion possible positions (5 x 10^20). The task of solving the game, determining the final result in a game with no mistakes made by either player, is daunting
“A handful of people with no knowledge of physics, engineering, or pyrotechnics are responsible for determining what is and what is not safe to bring on a plane. They’re paid minimum wage and told to panic if they see something they don’t recognize.”
—My Encounter with the TSA
“Here is Plato’s human being.”
—Diogenes of Sinope
Play
“I have always found it risible
That “atom” should mean indivisible,
When deep inside all atoms lie
Their very tiny nuclei,
Containing almost all the mass,
Surrounded by a foggy gas:
Electrons! We should all be proud
Of what we know about that cloud,
Whose properties were once a mystery
But now belong to science history:
An explanation full and blemish-free
That underlies the whole of chemistry.” —What’s wrong with these stanzas? - Physics Today
That “atom” should mean indivisible,
When deep inside all atoms lie
Their very tiny nuclei,
Containing almost all the mass,
Surrounded by a foggy gas:
Electrons! We should all be proud
Of what we know about that cloud,
Whose properties were once a mystery
But now belong to science history:
An explanation full and blemish-free
That underlies the whole of chemistry.” —What’s wrong with these stanzas? - Physics Today
“People who want to make meth will find ways to do it that don’t require an Erlenmeyer flask. But raising a generation of people who are technically incompetent is a recipe for disaster.”
—Bill Nye (America’s War on Science)
Crayon Physics →
kloonigames.com
You play with crayons and physics. The goal of the game is to move the red ball so that it collects the stars. You can cause the red ball to move by drawing physical objects.
Do biologists have physics envy? →
scienceblogs.com
Of course they do! :)
Play
“Ironhide buyers get twin big-rig-style smokestacks, 20” black wheels wearing massive tires in lieu of the TopKick’s standard dualies, custom, powder-coated front and rear bumpers, and a monster winch up front.”
—Monroe Truck offers production version of Transformers’ Ironhide
“It doesn’t matter if you hit the ground or a robot’s hand, if you fall hundreds of feet (or even a lot less), you’ll get squished if you are suddenly stopped.”
—Science Review of Transformers (Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy)
“Nuclear waste is astronomically less deadly than the CO2 waste we all heedlessly put into the air. Each year our CO2, if turned into a solid, would make a mountain one mile high and 16 miles in circumference, but it adds up year by year, invisible, odorless and deadly. And in the end, it will kill us all.”
—James Lovelock, Greens for Nukes (Playboy, July 2007)
“It is extraordinary that if 100 coal miners die in a pit explosion in China, it rates no more than a column inch of news. But if a nuclear worker drops a wrench on his toe, the headline reads SERIOUS ACCIDENT AT ATOMIC PLANT.”
—James Lovelock, Greens for Nukes (Playboy, July 2007)
