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Monthly Archives: March 2007
Blast from the Past
Blast of Giant Atom Created Our Universe, from the December, 1932 issue of Popular Science. From the (2007) introduction:
This is a pretty amazing article. It’s a concise summary of the big bang theory published only 3 years after Edwin Hubble made his famous observations about the redshifts of distant galaxies. Yet it’s pretty much identical to one you’d see today. Only a few details like the size of the initial “atom” and the age of the universe seem off. Keep in mind it took another 35 years or so before the scientific community came to accept that the big bang really happened.
Found via a post at Cosmic Variance, which emphasizes the work of Father Georges-Henri Lemaître, and concludes
Lemaître passed away in 1966, a year after Penzias and Wilson detected the microwave radiation leftover from the Primeval Atom.
I.e, Lemaître lived long enough to see his work confirmed by observation.
Fighting words!
Found on the OldTools Mailing List.
Apparently a few years ago, the Louisville Baseball Bat Museum had a billboard up outside of town advertising that they had “More Old Bats Than A Knitting Convention.” The local knitters’ group had quite a tizzy over it.
Somebody else promptly commented
And If your SWMBO is a major-league knitter, then you’ll understand why
.
Since my SWMBO* is also a “major-league knitter”, I understand quite well.
*If necessary, you can look it up at the OldTools faq :-)>
Slow Weekend
How to get the job done
See Osama turns 50, via Planet Carleton.
Protected: I survived!
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Politicians and Astronomy
More on geocentrism linked to a note at Talking Points Memo. There Joshua Micah Marshall laments that Molly Ivins is no longer around to write about the story. Personally, I would like to see H.L. Mencken’s comments.
The Dangers of Scientific Terminology
From Cosmic Variance
The spheroidal distribution of stars in the centers of rotating disk galaxies is called the “bulge”. Now, introduce a bunch of bored and horny 19 year olds into the mix, and you have a dangerous cocktail. One of my colleagues lost complete control of a 250 person lecture class when she had two male students hold up pictures of different galaxies, while she expounded on how “This guy over here has a small bulge, but the bulge of this guy is quite prominent.” The titters started as she forged ahead unknowing, until the entire class collapsed in hysterics. At that point, you just have to put down your laser pointer, send the class home, and head for the bar. Learning is over.
This reminded me of how my classes in quantum mechanics taught me about the mathematics of bras.
Star Wars in the News
$100k For Kenobi’s Cloak. OTOH Chess Enlightenment is not so enthusiastic about the same character.
A Small Connection
In Irish you don’t count people in the same way you count things. In particular, “two” as in “two people” is beirt rather than dó or dhá. This came up in class last night, and for some reason it stuck in my mind.
On my way home from work I remembered that long (35+ years) ago at Carleton I had learned an Irish dance called Siamsa Beirte, which we were told translates roughly as “play for two”. A quick check in an Irish dictionary this evening showed that siamsa means “amusement”. Close enough.
So now I understand the name of the dance and the tune better than I did way back then. It has taken a while :-)> Still, I am pleased that I could make the association.
I have forgotten the dance–I don’t think I ever did it after graduation in 1972. However, I clearly remember that it was fun. I would like to learn it again.
From Hilbert Space to Dilbert Space, and beyond 