Math on the Simpsons
Fun read…
A look into the deep, dark, strangely complicated world of Simpsons mathematics.
Fun read…
A look into the deep, dark, strangely complicated world of Simpsons mathematics.
They estimate that somewhere between 30% and 50% of the water in Earth’s oceans must be older than the Sun.
via Earth Has Water Older than the Sun – Scientific American.
Almost missed it…
Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Latin for “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy”, often referred to as simply the Principia, is a work in three books by Sir Isaac Newton, in Latin, first published 5 July 1687
via Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Thanks to Steven for passing this on…
Amazing that we are still discovering important aspects of our solar system that totally change how we look at our cosmic neighborhood.
That humans have confirmed the Higgs boson and much of the underpinnings of the inflationary nature of the universe shortly after the Big Bang (gravity waves!) in the last two years (not to mention other advances in biological, psychological and sociological sciences) in a time of scientific budget cuts and anti-scientific thinking in our country gives me great hope for our species in this still young century.
We’re explorers, and these understandings of the universe around us leads us to greater deeds here on earth with the right guidance. Or to put it another selfish way, every dollar we put into science leads to many many more in return.
While we are capable of disastrous and terrible actions, we’re also capable of learning from our past and correcting our path as a species. Here’s to our better natures in this incredible time of human exploration…
Reaching back across 13.8 billion years to the first sliver of cosmic time with telescopes at the South Pole, a team of astronomers led by John M. Kovac of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics detected ripples in the fabric of space-time — so-called gravitational waves — the signature of a universe being wrenched violently apart when it was roughly a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second old. They are the long-sought smoking-gun evidence of inflation, proof, Dr. Kovac and his colleagues say, that Dr. Guth was correct.
Inflation has been the workhorse of cosmology for 35 years, though many, including Dr. Guth, wondered whether it could ever be proved.
If corroborated, Dr. Kovac’s work will stand as a landmark in science comparable to the recent discovery of dark energy pushing the universe apart, or of the Big Bang itself. It would open vast realms of time and space and energy to science and speculation.
via Detection of Waves in Space Buttresses Landmark Theory of Big Bang – NYTimes.com.
Chilling to see the results of Chernobyl still working themselves out in the natural world…
“Apart from a few ants, the dead tree trunks were largely unscathed when we first encountered them,” says Timothy Mousseau, a biologist at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, and lead author of the study. “It was striking, given that in the forests where I live, a fallen tree is mostly sawdust after a decade of lying on the ground.”
Forests Around Chernobyl Aren’t Decaying Properly: Smithsonian Magazine
Merianna and I were watching House of Cards Season 2 and I happened to be sitting on the floor playing with the pups when I remarked “was that an earthquake??”
Turns out… yep.
Whatever you’re doing right now, stop it.
And go look (watch) this amazing production:
Code is on GitHub.