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running commentary

The internet is filled with things. Here are some of them.

#science

2024

The Cosmos... Reconsidered? 2024 Dec 3
Advanced concepts in physics are notoriously hard to understand, taking smart people years to achieve mastery in even narrow fields.

But what if that was because all that years of accumulated physics knowledge and theory and experimentation and observation was wrong? What if, instead of the world of physicists such as Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger and Paul Dirac and Max Planck being the foremost authority on the topics to which they've dedicated their lives, it was this retired electronics tinkerer slash photographer who was the true master? After all, if the so-called "physicists" were really experts on the topic, they'd have a website as awesome as this, which explains literally everything without even resorting to any of those pesky mathematical equations.
Rejuvenation Roadmap 2024 Dec 3
These people take the sci-fi concept of immortality via body rejuvenation seriously. So seriously that they've attempted to identify all the scientific progress being done to stop or reverse the aging process. There's ... a lot, and a lot left to do.
Why is salt iodized? 2024 Sep 11
Because lack of iodine causes many ailments, that's why. But how did doctors convince (almost) the entire world to iodize its salt supply? Surely the public was skeptical of the claims of these so-called "scientists"? Turns out, they were.
Economics is Really Hard 2024 Sep 6
People don't listen to expert economists even though they should, and economists have the data to back that up. The reason for this is that economics is really hard, harder than most people expect.
Non-Euclidean Doom: what happens to a game when pi is not pi 2024 May 29
Can a game rendering engine render a world where pi is not equal to 3.1415etc? Turns out, the answer is "sometimes." What does it look like? How do things interact when the shortest path between two objects is no longer a straight line?
Supernovas near you 2024 May 28
This is a short Scientific American article that talks about how often "local" supernovas occur and what happens when they do, getting into frequency and causes and the scale of the situation. Not the most practical of information to fill you brain with, but interesting to me.
The Last Sound You Will Ever Hear 2024 May 27
Sonar is loud. Very loud. Quite possibly the loudest sound humanity makes on purpose. It's so loud, it boils the water near the Sonar equipment. It kills anything near it. It can stun divers even 100 miles away. It also sounds nothing like what is played in movies.
Why do high voltage power lines hiss when it's raining? 2024 Feb 12
All uninsulated lines show corona. [Corona discharge] just [is] not a big deal until you're dealing with a pretty high voltage. As the voltage goes from a very big positive to a very big negative, the air around it gets ionized... This is the normal mains hum... Water is much, much heavier than air, and it ionizes just as easily. So on a rainy or humid day, the corona is pulsing with water in it. This gives it momentum, so the heavier water particles travel out farther. But they themselves are ionized, which means they can ionize more air than the line could normally reach on its own, and ionized air is conductive. And there's almost always 3 of these lines pretty close together. The sound you're hearing is a million teeny tiny electrostatic discharges from all the charged up water particles interacting with each other with nearby lines or grounded objects. This is actually the worst time to be anywhere near them; the air is supposed to be their insulator, and at that moment it isn't working as well.
zero 2024 Jan 26
What does it really mean to "invent" the number zero? Why is its invention so special – so critical to science? And how rare was its invention? DRH once again has all the answers.
As Asteroid hit the Earth today 2024 Jan 24
It was very small and burned up in the sky near Berlin. This isn't wholly remarkable, except for that teams of international astronomers (powered by NASA and JPL) spotted this asteroid a full 95 minutes prior to it hitting Earth, and were able to track it through multiple sources of observation. This may not seem like much, but it's evidence of a solid step forward in humanity's ability to predict other, larger, potentially life-impacting asteroids.
The Carrington Event may have been more localized than we realized 2024 Jan 16
As we enter anther solar maximum on the Sun's 11-year cycle, this article may help lessen fears of an apocalyptic Coronal Mass Ejection frying all electronics on Earth (such as the one which fried telegraph wires, witnessed by Richard Carrington back in 1858) and destroying society (and my camera collection) as we know it. Apparently incidents in 2002 and 2005 were also linked to solar activity, and while they did cause issues, they were obviously not the globe-spanning catastrophe that doomsayers have been predicting.
First Spectrum of Ball Lightning 2024 Jan 12
This article is just shy of ten years old, but it's still new to me. Ball lightning was caught on a fancy physicist's spectrograph! They were recording regular lightning strikes and caught the incredibly-rare ball lightning purely by luck. This doesn't preclude that there's other types of ball lightning out there from different sources, but this ball lightning in particular was made, turns out, from dirt. Why dirt? I'll let the physicists explain:
One popular theory is that ball lightning is caused when lightning striking the ground vaporizes some of the silicate minerals in soil. Carbon in the soil strips the silicates of oxygen through chemical reactions, creating a gas of energetic silicon atoms. These then recombine to form nanoparticles or filaments which, while still floating in air, react with oxygen, releasing heat and emitting the glow.
Cassiopeia A: NASA Telescopes Chase Down "Green Monster" in Star's Debris 2024 Jan 9
The Webb space telescope continues to be fantastic, this time peering into the structure of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A. Combining Webb's image with that from the X-ray space telescopes Chandra provides even more insight. Insight into exactly what is above my head, but I love following this space science from the comfort of my armchair.

2023

On the importance of staring directly into the sun 2023 Oct 29
What discovery about the universe remains unmade yet will be seen as exceedingly obvious in retrospect? It is difficult to overcome our own biases which make us blind to what we take for granted.
Bubble Science 101 Bubble Solution Recipe 2023 Jun 3
Making bubbles from soapy water not cutting it? Come the bubble scientists and their recipe for the best bubble solution you will ever try.
Introduction to Microphones 2023 Mar 11
This website is a full catalog of broadcast and production microphones, with detailed explanations of their histories and workings. Check out the Neumann U87 to see the classic model that NPR prefers when creating their crisp, clean sound.