THINKING OUTSIDE THE (BLACK) BOX
DO YOU RECALL Douglas Adams’ book and movie The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? Deep Thought, its giant computer (with Helen Mirren’s voice), is asked the Greatest Question of Life. … Continue reading
PHOTOGRAPHING THE POINT OF NO RETURN
THE FIRST PHOTOGRAPH of a black hole is a major astronomical achievement. This also relates to several items that appeared here at SimanaitisSays: “Happy Birthday—General Relativity!,” March 27, 2015; “China’s … Continue reading
GEORGIA O’KEEFFE’S PAINTINGS HAVE ACNE
FOR A LONG TIME, it was thought that the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe contained specks of sand traceable to her beloved New Mexico environs. But, over time, these specks were … Continue reading
CAPTURING IMAGES OF AIR
DIFFERENT DENSITIES of air cause differing refractions of light. This scintillation is what causes shimmering images of hot landscapes on a sunny day. Capturing such images is challenging, but NASA … Continue reading
GREAT WHITE SHARKS HAVE GREAT DNA TOO
THERE’S IRONY yet comfort in learning that the great white shark, Carcharodon cacharias, possesses characteristics that may prove beneficial to humans. According to BBC News, February 19, 2019, the understanding … Continue reading
MAKING (OR LOSING) ZILLIONS AT (ALMOST) THE SPEED OF LIGHT
HFT IS short for high-frequency trading, the predominant communication of financial markets around the world. SimanaitisSays has touched on this topic twice, “Trading in Nanoseconds”, June 16, 2014; and ”Lasers … Continue reading
KAREN UHLENBECK WINS THE ABEL PRIZE!
LET’S ALL congratulate Dr. Karen Uhlenbeck. She’s the first woman to win the Abel Prize, one of the world’s top awards in mathematics. One of her mathematical specialities, briefly put, … Continue reading
MATHEMATICAL INDUCTION: DOMINOES OF LOGIC
THE WORD “INDUCTION” has a whole bunch of meanings: Merriam-Webster starts with “the act or process of inducting (as into office),” which is sort of a definitional cop-out: What’s “inducting”? … Continue reading
GETTING ANSTY ABOUT NAVIGATION
AT SUPERFICIAL GLANCE, ants seem to alternate between random walks and purposeful straightline travel. Scientists at Aix Marseille University in Marseille, France, have created an AntBot that delves beyond the … Continue reading
EARTH PHOTOBOMBS THE BAD SIDE OF THE MOON
LINK THE FOLLOWING: Chinese space engineers, professors and students at China’s Harbin Institute of Technology, Dutch amateur radio astronomers, and Bernie Taupin. Back in 1970, poet/lyricist Bernie Taupin wrote “Bad … Continue reading
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