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Category Archives: Sci-Tech

EARTHQUAKES—“CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?”

WHAT WITH the Earth’s surface being three-quarters water, oceanic research is essential to understanding our world. However, such monitoring is especially difficult to deploy and maintain. Science magazine, published weekly … Continue reading

March 28, 2021 · Leave a comment

PLANCK CORES—A NEW COSMOLOGICAL MODEL

SCIENTISTS ARE MODELERS. They devise mathematical models to explain what they perceive as reality. Pre-Copernicus, with human-centric and religious fervor, their model located Earth at their reality’s center. Newton refined … Continue reading

March 13, 2021 · 1 Comment

MATHEMATICS AND Moby-Dick

I’VE MET SEVERAL world-famous mathematicians, including Lotfi Zadeh, 1921–2017, the discoverer of fuzzy logic. And my life has also been enriched by learning from those I’ve not had opportunity to … Continue reading

March 12, 2021 · 3 Comments

ON INDUSTRY 4.0

THE MARCH 2021 Shift, published as a supplement to Automotive News, has a most interesting editorial by Leslie J. Allen, Shift Editor. She writes, “I’m not much for buzzwords,” but … Continue reading

March 11, 2021 · 1 Comment

AAAS MEMBER COMMUNITY FORUM GLEANING

AFTER ALMOST TWO years of lively—not to say occasionally raucous—exchange, the American Association for the Advancement of Science has modified the Terms and Conditions of its Community Forum.  Some members … Continue reading

March 9, 2021 · 2 Comments

FINNED SEISMOLOGISTS AID IN OCEANIC RESEARCH

THE FIN WHALE, Balaenotera physalus, grows to about 80 ft. in length, weighs up to 80 tons, lives more than 80 years, and chats with others of its species in … Continue reading

March 5, 2021 · Leave a comment

BLAISE PASCAL—COUNTING ON THINGS

SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY MATHEMATICIAN Blaise Pascal was also a physicist, philosopher, theologian, and inventor, perhaps best known for co-founding the mathematical theory of probability and devising Pascal’s Triangle coefficients of the binomial … Continue reading

March 2, 2021 · 4 Comments

THE DRONE RACE

DRONES CAN BE entertaining radio-controlled hobby craft. They’re useful for aerial photography and employed in news and traffic reports. They’re increasingly seen as delivery vehicles. And, alas, they’re the hot … Continue reading

February 25, 2021 · Leave a comment

ISADORE SINGER—BRIDGE BUILDER

IN THE NEW York Times, February 14, 2021, Julie Rehmeyer observed the passing, at age 96, of mathematician Isadore Singer. The article caught my eye when she wrote that Singer … Continue reading

February 18, 2021 · Leave a comment

THE ONLINE AD BUBBLE

HAVE YOU BOUGHT anything because of online advertising? I don’t believe I have. Ever. You know the kind of ad I have in mind: those ubiquitous online comeons that are … Continue reading

February 12, 2021 · 3 Comments