Polymath (n): A person who has extensive knowledge in many different areas
If you have been driving late at night, probably in an area which is not very populated, you may have seen some streetlights casting a strange blue/purple light. I’ve seen this myself in a few different areas. At the time, I thought that there must be some reason behind it – some sort of function Read More …
Wintertime in western Washington is usually pretty dreary. Lots of rain, near constant cloud cover, and really early sunsets. However, once summer arrives, this gets flipped on its head. Lots of clear skies, and nights where the sun doesn’t set until after 9pm. Right now, though, we’re approaching the liminal state of spring. You can’t Read More …
A couple of weeks ago, on May 19th, Koichi Itagaki, an amateur astronomer in Japan, was taking a picture of the galaxy M101. This galaxy, known as the Pinwheel Galaxy, is a very popular object for astronomers to capture, and it would not be the first time Itagaki took a picture of it. As a Read More …
Well, I am almost all caught up on the trivia I must dispense. This one tonight, and another tomorrow, and I’ll be all done. Just in time for the following week’s post. It never ends. At this point, hopefully you’re not getting too full of trivia, and you can still gorge yourself on this Viking Read More …
This week, if you go outdoors at night and look towards the east, you may see a bright red object glowing in the night sky. That’s right, it’s the god of war himself, Mars. This week, Mars has just reached opposition with the Earth. This means that Mars is almost directly opposite the Earth from Read More …
When it comes to the history of science, we owe a lot to the ancient philosophers who spent their lives debating the nature of the world around them. There were some philosophers who were on the right track, millennia before the evidence vindicated them. For example, Aristarchus of Samos is the first known author to Read More …
When I was a kid growing up, I loved watching science documentaries of all kinds. A rather popular topic was any variation on DOOM FROM THE SKIES – how we’re going to be destroyed by xyz astronomical event. It’s pretty easy to write a show around how the dinosaurs were killed by an asteroid impact Read More …
On the morning of July 16, 1945, the world changed in many ways. The detonation of the world’s first atomic bomb at the Trinity Test Site in New Mexico represented the beginning of a new era in global politics. The start of the Atomic Age also heralded the beginning of the Cold War, and the Read More …
The other day, I saw a shirt which said “I’m only responsible for what I say, not for what you understand.” At first I laughed and thought “I need a shirt like that”. But then I got to thinking a little more about what it meant. And I realized that it reflects a misconception that Read More …
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