Electronic/World Wide Web>Blog:  Raymo , Chet (2004 - 2011), Science Musings Blog, Retrieved on 2011-11-24
  • Source Material [blog.sciencemusings.com]
  • Folksonomies: science spirituality

    Memes

    No Memes Found


    Child Reference

     Non-overlapping?
    Electronic/World Wide Web>Blog:  Raymo , Chet (DECEMBER 26, 2011), Non-overlapping?, Science Musings Blog, Retrieved on 2012-01-06
  • Source Material [blog.sciencemusings.com]
  • Folksonomies: science religion
    Child Reference Memes
    06 JAN 2012

     Science Runs Forward, Religion Runs Backwards

    Let me posit a difference between religion and science. Religion: Future>Present>Past Science: Past>Present>Future. Let me explain. Religion, as it has traditionally been understood in its institutional guise, begins with the dream of a comforting future. An escape from the apparently inescapable reality of death. Which impacts our daily lives in the present. Determines, for example, codes of morality, inspires great deeds of goodness or mayhem. Mandates rites and rituals. ...
    Folksonomies: science religion
    Folksonomies: science religion
      1  notes

    One works from the past into the present, the other from the present into the past for support.


    Child Reference

     Click!
    Electronic/World Wide Web>Blog:  Raymo , Chet (NOVEMBER 22, 2011), Click!, Science Musings Blog, Retrieved on 2012-01-06
  • Source Material [blog.sciencemusings.com]
  • Folksonomies: wonder electricity
    Child Reference Memes
    06 JAN 2012

     Electricity is Like Magic, but is Also Law

    Surely there is no technology that has changed our lives more than the electricity that comes into our homes on a wire. Lighting, cooling, heating, ironing, cooking, and entertainment at the flick of a switch. Cheap, silent, invisible energy at our beck and call, flowing though a wire. Magic. Wonderful. One of my scientific heroes is Michael Faraday -- gentle, brilliant, infused with wonder. No one did more to wrest electricity from the gods and make it do our bidding than he. For most peop...
    Folksonomies: nature laws magic electricity
    Folksonomies: nature laws magic electricity
      1  notes

    We cannot forget when we appreciate the wonder of our Universe that it is governed by laws, not magic.


    Child Reference

     Going deep
    Electronic/World Wide Web>Blog:  Raymo , Chet (OCTOBER 28, 2011), Going deep, Science Musings Blog, Retrieved on 2012-01-06
  • Source Material [blog.sciencemusings.com]
  • Folksonomies: universe scale
    Child Reference Memes
    06 JAN 2012

     Hubble Ultra Deep Field (UDF) photograph

    Here we go again, one of the epic documents of our time, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (UDF) photograph, the deepest look into space ever. A random part of the sky, so small it could be covered by a pinhead held at arm's length. A part of the sky -- as NASA says -- that you'd see looking through an eight-foot-long soda straw. A photo exposed over 400 orbits of the Hubble, a total exposure of 11.3 days. The telescope pointing precisely to the same point in space even as it whizzes around the Ear...
     1  1  notes

    It would take 12.7 million such photos to cover our night sky, and there are 10,000 galaxies in this image.


    Child Reference

     Post-post-
    Electronic/World Wide Web>Blog:  Raymo , Chet (OCTOBER 20, 2011), Post-post-, Science Musings Blog, Retrieved on 2012-01-06
  • Source Material [blog.sciencemusings.com]
  • Folksonomies: post-modernism
    Child Reference Memes
    06 JAN 2012

     Post-Modernism VS Science

    In last week's NYT Book Review's back page Essay, writer Steven Johnson tells of his mid-1980s undergraduate years in Brown University's semiotics program. This is from a student paper he wrote at the time: The predicament of any tropological analysis of narrative always lies in its own effaced and circuitous recourse to a metaphoric mode of apprehending its object; the rigidity and insistence of its taxonomies and the facility with which it relegates each vagabond utterance to a strict reg...
    Folksonomies: science post-modernism
    Folksonomies: science post-modernism
      1  notes

    PM spent all its energies on criticizing science, but science just kept producing results.


    Child Reference

     Right down Santa Claus lane
    Electronic/World Wide Web>Blog:  Raymo , Chet (December 2006), Right down Santa Claus lane, Science Musings Blog, Retrieved on 2012-01-05
  • Source Material [blog.sciencemusings.com]
  • Folksonomies: superstition
    Child Reference Memes
    05 JAN 2012

     Santa Claus Can't Live at the North Pole

    Here's a riddle for the kids. A man leaves his house for a walk. He walks a mile due south, a mile due east, and a mile due north, and finds he is back where he started. What is the man's name? Yes, Virginia, his name is Santa Claus. And his house is at the North Pole. But don't go looking for him there, Virginia. Here's the cold fact: Santa Claus doesn't live at the North Pole. I knew from a young age that there was something fishy about Santa's address. At the age of five or six I discov...
    Folksonomies: superstition
    Folksonomies: superstition
     1  1  notes

    The ice is drifting an so is the pole.


    Child Reference

     Sic et non
    Electronic/World Wide Web>Blog:  Raymo , Chet (2008), Sic et non, Science Musings Blog, Retrieved on 2012-01-05
  • Source Material [blog.sciencemusings.com]
  • Folksonomies: atheism creationism
    Child Reference Memes
    05 JAN 2012

     Creationsim VS "I Don't Know"

    Where did the primal seed of the big bang come from? How did life begin? How did monarch butterflies evolve the ability to navigate to their winter home? God did it, says the believer. I don't know, says the agnostic. The two statements have exactly the same explanatory value. Zero. Why then opt for one rather than the other? The first provides an illusion of understanding, and reinforces the ancient belief in a personal divinity who attends to our individual lives. The second is a goad to c...
      1  notes

    Neither explains any natural phenomena, but the latter leads the door open to curiosity.


    Child Reference

     The thing with feathers
    Electronic/World Wide Web>Blog:  Raymo , Chet (May 2009), The thing with feathers, Science Musings Blog, Retrieved on 2012-01-05
  • Source Material [blog.sciencemusings.com]
  • Folksonomies: two cultures
    Child Reference Memes
    05 JAN 2012

     Pessimism VS Optimism in Science

    By and large, literary intellectuals tend to be a gloomy lot, with little but scorn for science and technology as engines of human happiness. By contrast, science is impossible without hope; it is inherently forward-looking. As Ian McEwan says: "You can't be curious and depressed." So the two cultures are not based so much on the academic disciplines themselves as on basic temperaments, says Ferry. One is either an optimist or a pessimist about the direction of human civilization; science an...
      1  notes

    Hope is a virtue, you have to work at it. We are split between optimists and pessimists.


    Child Reference

     Imagine that
    Electronic/World Wide Web>Blog:  Raymo , Chet (SEPTEMBER 21, 2011), Imagine that, Science Musings Blog, Retrieved on 2012-01-05
  • Source Material [blog.sciencemusings.com]
  • Folksonomies: mathematics dna
    Child Reference Memes
    05 JAN 2012

     Mathematical Proof that an Arm's Length of DNA is in Ever...

    We know from X-ray diffraction studies that a strand of DNA is 1.5 nanometers (1.5 x 10 to the -9 meters) in radius. Assume a cylinder 1 meter long (the arm's length) with a radius of 1.5 nanometers and work out the volume (length x pi r-squared). A typical animal cell is about 8 micrometers (8 x 10 to the -6 meters) in radius. Assume a spherical cell and calculate the volume (4/3 pi r-cubed). Do it yourself. You will see that the DNA fits easily inside the cell, with plenty of room for all o...
    Folksonomies: mathematics dna
    Folksonomies: mathematics dna
      1  notes

    Chet Raymo does the math to demonstrate this seemingly impossible scientific facts.


    Child Reference

     Kid lit
    Electronic/World Wide Web>Blog:  Raymo , Chet (June 2006), Kid lit, Science Musings Blog, Retrieved on 2012-01-05
  • Source Material [blog.sciencemusings.com]
  • Folksonomies: education
    Child Reference Memes
    05 JAN 2012

     A Poem to Teach a Child

    We live in an age of information. Too much information can swamp the boat of wonder, especially for a child. From a science book we might learn that a flying bat might snap up 15 insects per minute, or that the frequency of its squeal can range as high as 50,000 cycles per second. Useful information, yes. But consider the information in this poem from Randall Jarrell's "The Bat Poet": A bat is born Naked and blind and pale. His mother makes a pocket of her tail And catches him. He cling...
    Folksonomies: education wonder
    Folksonomies: education wonder
      1  notes

    We are drowning in facts, instead, give children wonder.


    Child Reference

     The green fuse
    Electronic/World Wide Web>Blog:  Raymo , Chet (JULY 26, 2011), The green fuse, Science Musings Blog, Retrieved on 2012-01-05
  • Source Material [blog.sciencemusings.com]
  • Folksonomies: wonder
    Child Reference Memes
    05 JAN 2012

     Plants on a Windowsill are a Shrine

    [These plants] are here to remind me that mystery is everywhere. The windowsill is an altar, a Holy of Holies. Here is the gift of transubstantiation: dirt, water, air and sun into succulence. The earth teems and roils. On the window sill that old magician -- life -- has some green silks up his sleeve.
      1  notes

    A naturalist shrine.


    Child Reference

     In a bubble?
    Electronic/World Wide Web>Blog:  Chet, Raymo (AUGUST 12, 2011), In a bubble?, Science Musings Blog, Retrieved on 2012-01-05
  • Source Material [blog.sciencemusings.com]
  • Folksonomies: skepticism
    Child Reference Memes
    05 JAN 2012

     Using Google is Like Watching Fox News or MSNBC

    That's something I picked up in science, I suppose -- wanting to know the other side of the story, testing one's ideas against the alternative. Of course, one is naturally predisposed to what one already believes. Early nurturing and education is not to be discounted. One might even have a genetic nudge toward liberality or conservatism. Still, it behooves one to approach alternative views with an open mind, or at least as open as one can manage. [...] And now I read Sue Halpern reviewing ...
    Folksonomies: bias
    Folksonomies: bias
      1  notes

    The search engine caters its results to your biases.


    Child Reference

     The Bright Boroughs, the Quivering Citadels
    Electronic/World Wide Web>Blog:  Raymo , Chet (AUGUST 15, 2011), The Bright Boroughs, the Quivering Citadels, http://blog.sciencemusings.com, Retrieved on 2012-01-05
  • Source Material [blog.sciencemusings.com]
  • Folksonomies: wonder
    Child Reference Memes
    05 JAN 2012

     If We Could See the Night Sky With Eyes Like the Hubble T...

    Imagine that we could see the night with eyes the size and sensitivity of the Hubble Space Telescope. How paltry then would seem our terrestrial gods, our shabby deities with human faces. How ridiculous our intolerances, how hollow our claims to have privileged access to the mind of God.
    Folksonomies: wonder night sky grandeur
    Folksonomies: wonder night sky grandeur
      1  notes

    The grandeur of the Universe would let us know our place.


    Child Reference

     Soul
    Electronic/World Wide Web>Blog:  Raymo , Chet (20110823), Soul, Retrieved on 2011-11-24
  • Source Material [blog.sciencemusings.com]
  • Folksonomies: science wonder spirituality
    Child Reference Memes
    24 NOV 2011

     The Molecular Beauty of a Butterfly

    When I see the butterfly, I imagine in my mind's eye the extraordinary chemical machinery of life, the winding loom of he DNA, the proteins linking like lock and key, the ceaseless hubbub of molecular commerce that goes on behind the scenes, from egg, to caterpillar, to chrysalis, to adult. Surely, no land of faerie is more magical than the transformation that occurs in the chrysalis, when a creepy-crawly caterpillar curls up in a self-made sack and rearranges its molecules to emerge as a win...
    Folksonomies: science wonder enchantment
    Folksonomies: science wonder enchantment
      1  notes

    Chet Raymo describes what he sees when he thinks of a butterfly.

    Parent Reference