I like Blue Highways and off-the-trail attractions. I was in Cleveland. So I examined exhibits for two hours, the only visitor at the Dittrick Museum of Medical History. 19th Century autopsy Located on the third floor of the Allen Memorial Medical Library at Case Western Reserve University, the Dittrick is small, but immensely informative. Medical [...]
Category Archives: Science/Math
Planetarium Earmark
October 9, 2008 – 9:38 pm
As former chairman of the Summer Science Program (SSP), an academic enrichment program for the very brightest teenagers, I know a bit about astronomy, the focus of SSP’s curriculum. I also know a bit about planetariums ["planetaria" is also accepted, but that sounds like a type of worm to me]. And since SSP once investigated, [...]
Science in the Muslim World
August 9, 2008 – 11:44 am
Egypt’s Library of Alexandria In a guest editorial published in the 8/8/08 issue of Science, the magazine of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Director of Egypt’s Library of Alexandria, Dr. Ismail Serageldin, states: “Throughout the Muslim world we are witnessing an increasingly intolerant social milieu that is driven by self-appointed guardians [...]
Solar Breakthrough at MIT? A Lesson for Politicians
August 3, 2008 – 12:47 am
On July 31, researchers at MIT announced a “revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source. Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock the most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun.” Funded in part by a $10 million grant from [...]
Heave Ho and Up She Rises!
April 17, 2008 – 5:32 pm
It was the wrong season for whales. It was the wrong month for sea lions. The gulls only tolerated me and to be true, I enjoyed them only within my limited fascination for the inexplicable red spot on their yellow beaks. For the first 20 minutes, a lone brown pelican held my attention as it [...]
P(achy)casso? — Elephant Painting an Elephant
March 31, 2008 – 6:51 pm
An excited correspondent sent me a link to this video of an elephant painting a picture of an elephant. YouTube – Elephant painting an elephant It is an engaging video, and comments on other websites from eyewitnesses (most often reporting their visits to Thailand) to such “artwork creation” give good evidence that this is not [...]
NCAA Final Four Math
March 30, 2008 – 7:06 pm
By missing their last shot, tenth-seeded Davidson lost to top-seeded Kansas 59-57…and for the first time in NCAA tournament history, all four #1 seeds made it to the Final Four. What are the odds of that happening? My assumptions are arbitrary—I admit that—but here’s the math.
How to Fix Intermittent Errors
March 6, 2008 – 6:13 am
Today my four-year-old Mac G4 laptop began acting its age. Groups of pixels jittered chaotically in horizontal regiments, sometimes covering the screen. Then, without anodyne application, the problem would disappear. And just as unpredictably, reappear. Further investigation revealed that these video measles increased or decreased as a function of manual pressure exerted on the case. [...]
Smallness
March 5, 2008 – 9:31 am
When Richard Feynman came back to Ojai’s Summer Science Program in 1960 for a second, unscheduled visit, his topic was what he called “smallness.” Today that field, in which he was a visionary, is called nanotechnology. Having been mesmerized by Feynman’s brilliance and wit during his talk on Relativity a couple of weeks earlier, we [...]
At the Feet of Richard Feynman
March 4, 2008 – 6:22 am
Richard Feynman at Summer Science Program In 1960, I sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, my feet thrust out, listening to Caltech’s Richard Feynman explain Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Einstein, dead for only five years, was an icon and a Nobel Laureate. I was too young and unread then to know that Feynman, [...]
