Tag: science Posts

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed. The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one. Strange is our situation here on earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men – above all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends. It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer. The […]

1977, in front of the House Agriculture Subcommittee of Domestic Marketing, talking about the recent recommendations by the USDA and Food and Nutrition Board towards a low-fat diet: However tenuous that linkage, however disappointing the various intervention trials, it still seems prudent to propose to the American public that we not only maintain reasonable weights for our height, body structure and age, but also reduce our dietary fat intakes significantly, and keep cholesterol to a minimum. And, conceivably, you might conclude that it is proper for the federal government to so recommend. On the other hand, you may instead argue: What right has the federal government to propose that the American people conduct a vast nutritional experiment, with themselves as subjects, on the strength of so very little evidence that it will do them any good? Mr Chairman, resolution of this dilemma turns on a value judgment. The dilemma so […]

In 1977, the same year I was born, NASA launched the Voyager 1 spacecraft with a mission to explore our solar system. It is still operational, and is located some 9.3 billion miles from the sun. At that distance, light (including radio waves) takes nearly 14 hours to reach our planet. By comparison, light from the sun takes about 8 minutes to get to earth. 17 years later, as voyager passed beyond the edge of our solar system, engineers at NASA turned the Voyager 1 spacecraft around, pointed it towards earth, and took a few shots of our planet. This is one of them. We’re that little speck on the right. Pretty humbling. In that same year, Dr. Carl Sagan, an astronomer, gave a talk where he first presented this rare photo of Earth. Here’s what he said. We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you […]

I’m just gonna jot this here in case anyone is interested in this sort of stuff. On saturday night, there will be a total eclipse of the moon, visible from all seven continents.. Set aside some time this weekend for sky watching. On Saturday night, March 3rd, there’s going to be a total eclipse of the Moon. This means the Moon will glide through the heart of Earth’s shadow and turn a beautiful shade of sunset red. Totality can be seen from parts of all seven continents including all of Europe and Africa and the eastern half of North America. Check out spaceweather.com for more details.