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The most popular blog posts about science & space on Hacker News. 131 posts.
Today we’re going to look at the history of aerospike engines, go over how nozzles work including things like overexpansion, underexpansion and even expansion ratios, we’ll look at the pros and cons of the aerospike, the physical limitations and problems, then we’ll compare the aerospike to some other traditional…
Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
I. “Pseudoaddiction” is one of the standard beats every article on the opioid crisis has to hit. Pharma companies (the story goes) invented a concept called “pseudoaddiction”…
That’s an easy go: energy is the amount of (on) my electricity bill, or maybe of (on) my natural gas bill. If I am very concentrated, I might add that it is also the money I spend at the gasoline pump, and if I am even more concentrated I will suggest that it might have something to do with the filling up of my…
[ An updated treatment of some of this material appears in Chapter 6 of the Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet (free) textbook. ]
I have a confession to make: I have always found symbolic algebra more intuitive than geometric pictures. I think you’re supposed to feel the opposite way, and I greatly admire people who think and communicate in pictures, but for me, it’s usually a struggle.
A more polished version of this article appeared on Nautilus on 2019 February 28. This version has some more material. How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Algebraic Geometry In my 50s, too old …
Some weeks ago I got involved in a discussion on Twitter about, which books to recommend on the history of calculus. Somebody chimed in that Steven Strogatz’s new book would tell you all that you n…
Radar is one of the most versitile sensors we have to determine what is happening in an environment. Some common applications include air traffic control, weather prediction, automated driver assist, astronomy and terrain mapping. Given that these applications have wildy varying requirements on resolution, range and…
SpaceX's new raptor engine is a methane fueled full flow staged combustion cycle engine and its so hard to develop, no engine like this has ever flown before!Now this topic can be really intimidating so in order to bring the Raptor engine into context, we’re going to do an overview of a few common types of rocket…
Olivier Forget's Personal Blog
Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
Interactive article explaining color spaces and how they're used to express color.
It’s not just binary BH’s that can do this, a single fast rotating BH that is tumbling could do it as well.
[Related to: Relaxed Beliefs Under Psychedelics And The Anarchic Brain, HPPD And The Specter Of Permanent Side Effects] I. Hallucinogen persisting perceptual disorder is a condition where people wh…
From the highly eclectic blog of Mark Dominus
Part of my series on common misconceptions in space journalism. It is an unwritten rule of space journalism that any article about Moon or Mars bases needs to have a conceptual drawing of habitatio…
Peter Dorman points to this post on statistical significance and p-values by Timothy Taylor, editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, a highly influential publication of the American Economic Association.
Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
If cement weren't 10,000 years old, it would seem like a futuristic technology: liquid rock!
Lambdaclass's blog about distributed systems, machine learning, compilers, operating systems, security and cryptography.
Official statistics say we are winning the War on Cancer. Cancer incidence rates, mortality rates, and five-year-survival rates have generally been moving in the right direction over the past few d…
Geostationary satellites maintain their position relative to earth. This means a parabolic dish can be pointed at the satellite and receive continuous downloads.
During the early days of testing for the legendary SR-71 Blackbird there were some harrowing mishaps, the details of which have rarely come to light. On January 25, 1966, test pilot Bill Weaver and Lockheed flight test reconnaissance and navigation systems specialist Jim Zwayer experienced their plane vanishing around…
Looking for flashcards for chemistry? Try 21st Night ! It allows you to create and share flashcards with anything on them: images, videos, equations, you name it . Plus, there’s a built-in to-do list!
Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
From the highly eclectic blog of Mark Dominus
