A photographer’s dream

Just imagine yourself as a photographer on the International Space Station (ISS). Constantly changing scenery – and most of it beautiful.
One of the astronauts, Jose Hernandez, has been sending back some lovely photos. Here are a couple below. Click on them to go to the originals – the one with the space station can be [...]

The ISSS used for teaching

I can still remember one of the few practical demonstrations I observed in my first year university physics class many years ago. This illustrated conservation of momentum. It involved our lecturer climbing on to the lecture room bench and standing on a plank of wood resting on (empty) beer bottles laid on their side (to [...]

Understanding the “multiverse”

Book review: In Search of the Multiverse by John Gribbin
Price: NZ$55
Hardcover: 240 pages
Publisher: Allen Lane (August 27, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1846141133
ISBN-13: 978-1846141133

These days when people talk about the “multiverse” they usually mean the idea that our “universe” is just part of a larger, perhaps unending, collection of “universes.” And that these different universes may have different [...]

The dogma of paradigm shifts

This is also from a post 18 months back:

It’s amazing how many times we see ‘paradigms’ used as a justification for scientific acceptance of intelligent design (ID) and other ideas which lack evidential support. The argument is that science progresses by changing paradigms – ‘paradigm shifts. New paradigms replace old, outdated paradigms. The “materialist” [...]

Environmental movement needs pragmatism

Book Review: Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto by Stewart Brand
Price: US$17.153
Hardcover: 336 page
Publisher: Viking Adult (October 15, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0670021210
ISBN-13: 978-0670021215
Stewart Brand is an invigorating and challenging writer. He has a long history in the environmental movement. His green credentials are undeniable. But he is not afraid to think outside the box. To challenge [...]

“Climategate” – the smoking gun?

Some of the more extreme climate change deniers, and others who have an anti-science agenda, continue to dredge through the domestic debris of the emails stolen by a hacker from the climatic research unit at the University of East Anglia. Their conclusions are, of course, predictable.  Meanwhile, the balanced media summary oif this fiasco is [...]

Awesome pictures from the Enceladus flyby

It’s amazing how much we are finding out about other bodies in the solar system these days. And the images we get back from some of our robotic spaceships can be incredible.
Here’s one taken by Cassini during a deep swoop past Enceladus, a moon of Saturn. This is an intriguing moon because it is thought [...]

Twittering in space

All going well the STS-129 Shuttle launch will occur on Monday 2.28 pm EST, USA (8.28 am Tuesday, NZ time).
Here’s a photograph of the crew for this mission.
What interests me, though, is that the number of astronauts using social media like Twitter is currently increasing markedly. It’s now quite common to get tweets from orbit. [...]

Einstein on Galileo’s contribution

Some religious apologists just can’t leave Galileo alone. They are unhappy about the fact that most people accept that the Church behaved badly in sentencing Galileo for heresy. (He got house arrest for the rest of his life and bans on his books, one of which was suppressed for 200 years). So in a manner [...]

The Earth and Moon – from Mars

The High Imaging Science Experiment orbiting Mars is producing some great images of the Martian surface (have a browse through the images at the website). But it’s also being used to image the other planets.
Here’s a shot of the Earth and Moon – taken from Mars!
(Source The Earth and Moon as Seen from Mars (PSP_005558_9040)).

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