Category Archives: sciences

fun with leptons

Posted on Sunday, 2002 December 01 by Anton

Facts about Electricity Did you notice how your friend twitched violently and cried out in pain? This teaches us that electricity can be a very powerful force, but we must never use it to hurt others unless we need to … Continue reading →

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one hundred eighteen

Posted on Wednesday, 2002 November 27 by Anton

Periodic Table of Science Fiction: Michael Swanwick is writing a short-short story for each of the elements, one a week.

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time for fun

Posted on Saturday, 2002 November 16 by Anton

Partly as a protest against the dirigisme presupposed in the institution of “Daylight Saving Time”, I’ve been tempted to set my computer’s clock to mean local solar time; I’m at 122 degrees West longitude, so my mail would be marked … Continue reading →

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tantalizing

Posted on Saturday, 2002 November 16 by Anton

Jean-François Colonna makes elaborate and striking mathematical images. I only wish they had more annotation.

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preserve our placebinēs!

Posted on Monday, 2002 November 04 by Anton

Joshua Burton (if memory serves) asks: By the way, has anyone seriously looked into how the thoughtless overuse of placebos in double-blind research studies dilutes their genuine value in therapeutic contexts? And shouldn’t the plural of placebo be placebimus?

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words on planets

Posted on Wednesday, 2002 October 09 by Anton

I did not know that Astronomy Picture of the Day is mirrored in multiple languages. (That list misses at least one: romanised Russian.) I stumbled onto the mirrors while seeking the origin of the name of a feature on Venus. … Continue reading →

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a co-alum triumphs

Posted on Sunday, 2002 October 06 by Anton

Theo Gray won the IgNobel Prize in Chemistry for his Periodic Table table (which I had mentioned recently).