This picture was taken with NASA’s Terra satellite which has been monitoring weather on Earth since February 2000. It takes around 1½ hours to orbit the earth at a distance of about 420 miles (660 km – it’s orbit is elliptical so it is not always the same distance from earth). Each pixel of the photograph …
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Author:SFScience
Retired Schoolmaster living in Wiltshire and Vendee France
Don’t Panic…
When I was in my last year at Prep School I was obsessed with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books by Douglas Adams. In it, a character called Zaphod Beeblebrox is sentenced to be put into the Total Perspective Vortex. The device compares you with the enormity of the Universe. This makes you feel so small and insignificant that …
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Just For The Halibut…
I love extraordinary units. You know that I always make a fuss about including your units and showing your working because it is important that those marking your work should be able to follow your thought processes even if you make errors in logic. They are mostly more interested in how you think than whether …
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iPad…
I hope you are having a lovely weekend. You have probably seen this but just in case you have not, I thought I would share this video from Peter Serafinowicz marking the release of Apple’s iPad. I was certainly impressed by his presentation and will be looking into acquiring one as soon as possible.
A Mars A Day…
I was invited out to dinner tonight and was welcomed at the door by a very enthusiastic plan to view Mars at its closest to Earth for 60,000 years. I rather too enthusiastically poo-pooed this as being a myth to a somewhat muted reception. We did go out and view Mars, which was twinkling with an …
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Scary Photo…
Click here if you want to see a scary photo.
Practice Makes Perfect…
The guitar is a fairly simple machine. It converts kinetic energy (the movement of the strings) into sound energy. The pitch of the sound is governed by the weight of the string and where on the fretboard the player puts his fingers. The thicker strings vibrate more slowly than thinner ones and hence produce a …
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Long Leave Photo…
I was amused by these two photos, which are such simple illusions. and I wondered whether you might try to create some photographic illusions if you have any spare time over Long Leave. Let me know if you produce anything you would like to have published here. And another thing… Some time ago I asked for further translations …
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35 Inconvenient Truths…
In October 2007, Lord Monckton of Brenchley published a response to Al Gore’s book and movie “An Inconvenient Truth”. In it Lord Monckton cites 35 errors in the movie. This came on top of a British judge decreeing that the film contained nine errors that needed to be clearly explained if it was to be used as a teaching aid …
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Exponential Growth…
The below describes the effects of exponential growth and is entirely lifted from something I read on the Internet. You may have a copy of the same article in paper form but the links might add to your understanding. The principle is simple. You start with one. Double it and you have two. Double again and …
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