751
I've said it all before but here we go again
Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 2,038 posts.
752
Not Mysticizing System Dynamics
A system dynamics model, properly considered, is just an analogy dressed up in a bit of formalism.
753
754
Galileo Project now fully funded for expedition to study an interstellar meteor
Wonderful news! We just received full funding for the Galileo Project expedition to scoop the fragments of the first interstellar meteor…
755
Death by hockey sticks
You may be familiar with the term “hockey stick curve,” used describe a trend that has been flat/stable for a very long time, but shoots up at the end of the series in dramatic fashion, resembling the shape of a hockey stick. Hockey can be a violent sport, and it’s easy to get hurt by even one well-aimed swing…
756
Futurist prediction methods and accuracy
I've been reading a lot of predictions from people who are looking to understand what problems humanity will face 10-50 years out (and sometimes longer) in order to work in areas that will be instrumental for the future and wondering how accurate these predictions of the future are. The timeframe of predictions that…
757
Biomanufactured materials are coming
And they hint at a future with vastly better products
758
Science is political, and that's a bad thing
People who say “science is political” usually aren’t just stating facts - they’re trying to push something on you. Don’t let them
759
Why have I never heard of the Ene-Farm? (2017)
While reading up on architecture in Japan recently, I came across a technology that I hadn’t heard of before: the Ene-Farm. It’s a domestic energy system that is being used in Japan and…
760
Busy Beaver Updates: Now Even Busier
Way back in the covid-filled summer of 2020, I wrote a survey article about the ridiculously-rapidly-growing Busy Beaver function. My survey then expanded to nearly twice its original length, with …
761
Why are D-sharp and E-flat considered to be two different notes?
Why do the black keys on the piano each have two different names? If the posts on r/musictheory are any indication, this is a persistent point of confusion, especially when music theory teachers ge…
762
We don't know how the universe began, and we will never know
Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
763
My black body story (it's physics)
I studied physics in university, and at one point asked a professor if I should learn German, because it seemed all the key texts of early ...
764
Outdoor Sound Propagation in the U.S. Civil War (1999)
Students of military history know that acoustic refraction and unusual audibility have often played significant roles in the outcome of battles. Before electrical and wireless communications became common on the tactical level, the sound of battle was often the quickest and most efficient method by which a commander…
765
766
Split Brain Psychology
The strange interactions of Selfhood and Multiplicity
767
Why does anything exist?
Why does anything exist? Why is there something rather than nothing? Would it not have been easier for there to be nothing at all?
768
Noether's Theorem in a Nutshell (2020)
Noether's theorem is an amazing result which lets physicists get conserved quantities from symmetries of the laws of nature. Time translation symmetry gives conservation of energy; space translation symmetry gives conservation of momentum; rotation symmetry gives conservation of angular momentum, and so on.
769
Hydroponics: Growing an appreciation for plants
I once heard a saying – “Don’t feel pity on plants because they can’t move. Feel pity on us, because we have to”. I really didn’t have an appreciation for what this meant until the COVID pandemic hit, which restricted my movement for a couple of years, and I decided to spend some of my new-found time at home learning…
770
How do palm trees survive hurricanes? (2017)
The destructive force of typhoons and hurricanes are no joking matter. Human structures are torn to shreds and flooded in the blink of an eye. It is devastating to say the least. With all of this destruction, one must wonder how native flora and fauna have coped with such forces over millions of years. The true…
771
The Latest Study on Red Meat and Heart Disease: A Red Herring
Procter & Gamble has driven research on TMAO and heart disease since 2015
772
Using grape harvest dates to estimate summer temperature over 650 years
It’s hot these days, it’s unusually hot, even dangerously hot, in a lot of places a lot of the time. While America has been hit hard this summer, it seems that Europe has been hit even …
773
Toward a Better Music Theory (2013)
Update: a version of this post appeared on Slate.com. I seem to have touched a nerve with my rant about the conventional teaching of music theory and how poorly it serves practicing musicians. I th…
774
Elizabeth Cotton’s Fingerstyle Ragtime
Dust-to-digital posted this lovely performance of “Washington Blues” by Elizabeth Cotten. It reminded me that she is the greatest and that I should write more about her. If you are a gu…
775
The worst dam idea: evaporating the Mediterranean to power Europe
Lessons from Atlantropa, the megaproject to unite Europe (& erase Africa)
776
Shor, I’ll do it (2007)
I’ve been talking a lot recently about how quantum algorithms don’t work. But last week JR Minkel, an editor at Scientific American, asked me to write a brief essay about how quantum al…
777
Is the Kalman filter just a low-pass filter?
Exploring the relationship between Kalman filtering and optimal frequency domain filtering.
778
Does the Past Still Exist?
Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
779
Galactic-Scale Energy (2011)
[ An updated treatment of this material appears in Chapter 1 of the Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet (free) textbook , and also appears as part of an article in Nature Physics in 2022.]
780
We're going to need a lot of solar panels
The team at Terraform Industries is now 11 people working towards a near term future where atmospheric CO2, much of it centuries of unpriced industrial waste, becomes the preferred default source o…