15
POPSA little science on positive energy ...positive or negative. It can't be measured with conventional methods, and that makes it all the more exciting and real to those who believe in it. One attempt to give respectability to the idea of positive energy that I recently came across involves a reference to Wilhelm Reich's orgone energy. Although I am tempted to regard talk of ‘positive energy' as superstitious mumbo-jumbo, I do have some sympathy for those who use the term. Psychological research has shown that we can verbally articulate only a fraction of what we experience. A radical response to the articulation gap would be just to refuse to talk about anything we can't put in concrete operational terms. If you come home from a party you hated and just say there was tremendous negative energy, perhaps that is ‘nuff said. Let others fill in the content to the satisfaction of their imagination. You, at least, pointed them in the right direction. <<
12
POPSHans Christian Ørsted : Who he was and why you owe him But no one had ever before scientifically documented the connection between electricity and magnetism, Cadden-Zimansky said. Ørsted's observation helped set the stage for the discovery of electromagnetic induction, whereby a changing magnetic field is used to produce an electric current and vice versa. Hans Christian Ørsted: 21st-Century Man Today Ørsted's fingerprints are on everything from medical scanners to your car's motor to theoretical invisibility devices. Cadden-Zimansky compared Ørsted's contribution to science to that made by another European scientist who lived more than a century before."Isaac Newton showed that the same phenomenon"—gravity—"causes a ball thrown into the air to fall down and the planets to orbit the sun," he said.Like electricity and magnetism, the different expressions of gravity "look like two different phenomena, but the same rules can describe them both. Ørsted's discovery was analogous."
29
POPS10 ancient Greek writers you should know Archimedes was a mathematician, engineer, inventor, physicist and astronomer. He is known for the invention of The Archimedes’ Screw, a mechanism for moving water that is still in use today. He also calculated the value of pi very precisely. Archimedes discovered how to define the volume of irregular objects by submerging them in water. According to legend, this discovery made him run out on the street naked (he was so excited that he forgot to get dressed) and cry “Eureka!” – I have found it.
32
POPSCould Jupiter wreck the solar system?
"So what's the likelihood Mercury could crash into the Earth? If it did, the asteroid that most likely wiped out the dinosaurs will seem like a drop in the ocean compared with a planet 4880 km in diameter slamming into us. There will be very little left after this wrecking ball impact. But here's the kicker: There is only a 1% chance that these gravitational instabilities of the inner Solar System are likely to cause any kind of chaos before the Sun turns into a Red Giant and swallows Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars in 7 billion years time. So, no need to look out for death-wish Mercury quite yet… there's a very low chance that any of this will happen. But some good news for Mars; the researchers have also found that if the chaos does ensue, the Red Planet may be flung out of the Solar System, possibly escaping our expanding Sun. So, let's get those Mars colonies started! Well, within the next few billions of years anyhow…" Good stuff for the next science-fiction movie :-)
19
POPSEvolution:24 myths and misconceptions It doesn't matter if people do not understand evolution "Survival of the fittest" justifies "everyone for themselves" Evolution is limitlessly creative Evolution cannot explain traits such as homosexuality Creationism provides a coherent alternative to evolution Creationist myths: Evolution must be wrong because the Bible is inerrant Accepting evolution undermines morality Evolutionary theory leads to racism and genocide Religion and evolution are incompatible Half a wing is no use to anyone Evolutionary science is not predictive Evolution cannot be disproved so is not science Evolution is just so unlikely to produce complex life forms Evolution is an entirely random process Mutations can only destroy information, not create it Darwin is the ultimate authority on evolution The bacterial flagellum is irreducibly complex Yet more creationist misconceptions Evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics
23
POPS20 Things You Didn't Know About Sex 6 Barbary macaques have a distinctive way to get their mates to make a sperm donation: yelling. If the female does not shout, the male almost never climaxes. 7 How do we know this? German primatologist Dana Pfefferle watched a group of macaques, counting the females’ yells and the males’ pelvic thrusts. She says this work is “quite weird, but it’s science.” 8 Here in the US of A, that kind of stuff ends up on YouTube. 9 Because Barry White sounds terrible underwater: Fish can produce a variety of noises with their bones, teeth, and gas bladders. Grant Gilmore of Estuarine Coastal and Ocean Science Inc. says that male fish probably use some of these sounds to woo females. 10 The spiny anteater, an egg-laying mammal native to Australia and New Guinea, has a penis with four heads, but only two fit into the female at once. 11 The tiny male paper nautilus, an octopus, impregnates the much larger female by shooting his penis (a modified tentacle) into her—and leaving it there.
16
POPSThe Ancient Mechanics and How They Thought He also majored in astronomy as an undergraduate, and about nine years ago, feeling science-deprived, he joined a multinational research endeavor called the Archimedes Project, based at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. The Archimedes team studies the history of mechanics, how people thought about simple machines like the lever, the wheel and axle, the balance, the pulley, the wedge and the screw and how they turned their thoughts into theories and principles. The textual record begins with “Mechanical Problems,” moves to Rome and then through the medieval Islamic world to the Renaissance. It ends, finally, with Newton, who described many of the basic laws of mechanics in the 18th century. By following the historical record, the Archimedes researchers have discovered that the evolution of physics — or, at least, mechanics — is based on an interplay between practice and theory.
Newest Clips
see Newest Clips
Pops
Comments
Tags
2
Most Pops
Print
Save
Turn on live update