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POPSAncient Chinese Bells The importance of that discovery grows when we realize that it took the West a thousand years to develop the cathedral bell, and we didn't have it until the middle ages. Bells are very hard to make, yet China had these remarkably sophisticated Zhong bells during the Golden Age of Athens. The bells produce a rich tone, they take far less bronze to get it than a cathedral bell, and then they deliver two sounds for the cost of one. It's easy to look right at something that's very sophisticated without seeing the sophistication. It took us eighty years to catch on to these remarkable, but unassuming, bells. The best inventions are like that. In the best inventions, elegance masquerades as simplicity.
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POPSHow Anti-Matter Propulsion Works It's not rocket science...at least rockets as we know them. :) So, why haven't we built a matter-antimatter reaction engine? The problem with developing antimatter propulsion is that there is a lack of antimatter existing in the universe. For now, we will have to create our own antimatter. Luckily, there is technology available to create antimatter through the use of high-energy particle colliders, also called "atom smashers." But these high-energy particle accelerators only produce one or two picograms of antiprotons each year. A picogram is a trillionth of a gram. It states that anti-matter propulsion is the most energy efficient propulsion. I suspect that will be true as long as the process of making the anti-matter is itself efficient enough to make it feasible.
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POPSColorado's Great Sand Dunes Notice in the first pic the semi-buried branches. The bulk of the dunes is stationary, but there are "escape dunes" that can migrate, sometimes daily, and can create patches of ghost forest. This clip inspired by this one, and by experiencing them firsthand.
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POPSMedical Quackery Devices Patented Dec. 12, 1905, the Timely Warning was manufactured as a solution to amorous dreaming. OMG! See those spikes? And while not listed at this site, I'm sitting here with a Dr. Pepper. It was originally created as a potion by pharmacist.
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POPSResenting the Rich - An Experiment of Envy Apparently, it matters a great deal whether people believe that others deserve their good fortune. If they don't believe they do, then less well-off people will further impoverish themselves to bring the rich bastards down a peg or two. Socialists often claim that capitalism is based on humanity's worst impulses, greed and selfishness, despite the fact that people who live in societies that participate in markets tend to be more generous and cooperative than those who don't. Oswald and Zizzo's research suggests that socialists who believe that their ideology appeals to humanity's better instincts have it backwards. Envy is behind the leveling spirit of socialism. A truly generous and rational soul would wish others well, especially if they have done no one any harm. This is further evidenced by wide support of "soak the rich" platforms of populist politicians.
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POPSThe Pigeonhole Principle Do any two people in Houston have the same number of hairs on their heads? Sounds tough to answer. Lining people up. Counting their hair follicles. Let’s take another look at our hair problem. The average head has 150 thousand hair follicles. So we can safely assume there’s no head with more than, say, a million hairs on it. Now let’s imagine we have a collection of holes labeled zero through a million. We’ll take all the residents of Houston and put them in the holes corresponding to the number of hairs on their heads. But Houston has a population of over two million. So by the pigeonhole principle, at least one hole (and probably many) will contain at least two people. We can be certain that at least two people in Houston have the same number of hairs on their heads. And we haven’t counted anything.
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POPSScientific Literacy And that's what science really stands to give them. That's the reason you and I are drawn to science. And I can see no reason to offer them anything less.
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POPSIroquois Blueprint for the U.S. Our constitution has many Iroquois features. Iroquois lawmakers didn't go to war. Civilian and military rule was separate. The Iroquois had no royalty -- no hereditary rule. Their nations could naturalize new citizens. The League didn't just conquer other nations. It could also admit them to membership. We didn't adopt the Iroquois unicameral system. They had only one council. Franklin fought for that. Because he lost, we have both the senate and the house. Franklin also wanted to let soldiers elect their own officers. That's what the Iroquois did. He lost on that one, too. Still, our constitution is a fine piece of engineering design. We looked at the European kingdoms we'd left behind. And we looked at these people who'd governed themselves so well for so long. In the end Canassatego and the Iroquois tipped the scales in shaping our way of life. And we can be very glad they did.
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POPSStellar Time Bomb - Tick, Tick If it’s a binary, then both stars are likely to end their lives as supernovae -- explosions that blast the stars to bits. Each will leave behind a neutron star or a black hole. A single star would probably explode, too, but it could form one of the most powerful blasts in the universe -- a gamma-ray burst.
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POPSGalileo's Experiment This was one of the first controlled scientific experiments. Like most of today's experiments, it was imperfect. But this experiment changed Galileo, and it changed history.
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POPSClimate of the Carboniferous Period Earth's atmosphere today contains about 380 ppm CO2 (0.038%). Compared to former geologic times, our present atmosphere, like the Late Carboniferous atmosphere, is CO2- impoverished! Understanding Earth's geologic and climate past is important for understanding why our present Earth is the way it is, and what Earth may look like in the future.
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POPSSeven Signs of Non-Competitive States As written by Ralph Peters, a retired Lieutenant Colonel formerly with U.S. Army Intelligence. Some of the poorest nations and most repressive autocracies suffer all of these traits.
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POPSExposing Lack of Academic Freedom on Campus I can't speak for the film, but I agree with the premise. Also from the article: "While the documentary focuses on individuals who successfully pushed back against harassment and censorship, it is important to note that there are many students and professors who have had their academic careers damaged and even ruined, Maloney told the audience after the screening."
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POPSN44 - Interstellar Cavern The image provides one of the most detailed views ever obtained of this relatively large region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to the Milky Way, located some 150,000 light-years away and visible from the Southern Hemisphere.
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POPSThe First American Patent - Turning Ash Into Gold We don't get the potassium salts we need from wood anymore. But for a long time, Hopkins had put us at the center of a great chemical process industry. So our first patent was one of the great American patents after all.
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POPSPaint Rock These alignments suggest that several groups may have gathered at this site on the solstices for rituals, trade, or other purposes. Religious ceremonies may have led up to the moment of local noon, when the Sun stood highest in the sky.
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POPSForgotten Inventor - The Fresno Scraper Fresno Scrapers served the US army in WW-I. The two-horse model retailed for $28, yet today's bulldozer blades are its direct offspring. The gigantic scraper-carryall earth mover is its grandchild.
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POPSThe Liberty Bell Among the more historically important occasions, it tolled when Benjamin Franklin was sent to England to address Colonial grievances, it tolled when King George III ascended to the throne in 1761, and it tolled to call together the people of Philadelphia to discuss the Sugar Act in 1764 and the Stamp Act in 1765. On every Fourth of July, at 2pm Eastern time, children who are descendants of Declaration signers symbolically tap the Liberty Bell 13 times while bells across the nation also ring 13 times in honor of the patriots from the original 13 states.
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POPSStar Explodes Halfway Across the Universe 7.5 billion light years...just crazy. Trivia Pop quiz: Anyone know off the top of your head what the previous 2.5 million light year record mentioned is? It's a backyard astronomy favorite, and yes, easily visible in moderately dark skies (in the Fall). Almost giveaway hint
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POPSShot Tower - Applying Nature to Production Up to then, most shot was cast. That was very labor-intensive. Shot was also made by pouring lead into a sieve over a barrel. That really did give tear-shaped drops. Watts's invention teaches us the two essential elements of good invention. The first is perception. Watts gazed more closely at nature and saw what other people had missed. The other element is simplicity. Others had labored to control the process with their own hands. Watts had the grace to stand aside and let nature do the work for him. The real beauty of this process is that, in the end, there is no human process at all.
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POPSThe First Barbary War On Jefferson's inauguration as president in 1801, Yussif Karamanli, the Pasha (or Bashaw) of Tripoli, demanded $225,000 from the new administration. (In 1800, Federal revenues totaled a little over $10 million.) Putting his long-held beliefs into practice, Jefferson refused the demand. Consequently, in May of 1801, the Pasha declared war on the United States, not through any formal written documents but by cutting down the flagstaff in front of the U.S. Consulate.
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