AG: End Times for a Scientist’s Career

This happens.  An astronomer said that he found, as astronomers do, something that looked unusual and that turned out to be an unusual form of a usual thing.  But before he figured that out, a reporter happened to ask him what’s new, and the astronomer said he’d found this unusual thing, couldn’t figure it out, [...]

Abstruse Goose, Stardust, & Entropy

Abstruse Goose added a mysterious little tag that says something like, “Now, how many pop culture references can you find?”  None for me, not one, geezer that I apparently am.  But I did get the astronomy/physics references. The stardust one:  maybe you already know this but most every element — the lithium in our batteries, [...]

Abstruse Goose & Maxwell’s Demon

This one’s going to take a little explanation.  Maxwell was James Clerk Maxwell, famous 19th century physicist.  He made up his demon as a way around a then-new and depressing law of physics, the Second Law of Thermodynamics.  The Second Law said that when things are left alone and nothing’s done to them, hot things [...]

REAL Mathematicians Unhindered by Laws of Physics

I think this is funny because it explains a problem I’ve had with math all along, which is that  math just makes stuff up:  makes up number, and space between numbers, and relations between numbers, and I’m not even mentioning zero.  Also I know that the horizon problem went something like, the universe shouldn’t have [...]

Abstruse Goose: A Great time To Be Alive

The last time anyone proclaimed the end of science — at least, this is what I hear — was just before the arrival of  relativity and quantum theory.    Abstruse Goose’s brave new islands, quantum gravity and dark energy, are going to require new physics, and new physics is like seeing outside the optical, hearing outside [...]

Abstruse Goose & Popular Science

It’s true, some of those science documentaries are pretty condescending. http://abstrusegoose.com/78

Abstruse Goose: Many Worlds

Abstruse Goose seems preoccupied with life paths and choices.  This time instead of math, he’s talking about physics, specifically about a theory that the many worlds which according to quantum uncertainty (thus Schrodinger’s cats) can possibly exist, actually do co-exist side by side, maybe in different universes or something.   I don’t know.  It’s pretty arcane. [...]

Abstruse Goose: Life Paths Integrated Over Time

Abstruse Goose sure has it in for athletes, doesn’t he.  Fine with me.  I’m less happy that he doesn’t arrange a life path for people who are born modestly, live modestly, work like dogs (actually not like any dog I’ve ever met, friendly mooches), have modest success and a gratifying life.  Boy, is that ever [...]