Discover magazine runs a column, NueroQuest, that "gives people insights into how their minds work". The magazine's website has interactive demonstrations of the print version.
Category: science
A classic algebra "paradox"
Think about this one:
| a | = | b |
| a2 | = | ab |
| a2-b2 | = | ab-b2 |
| (a+b)(a-b) | = | b(a-b) |
| (a+b) | = | b |
| a+a | = | a |
| 2a | = | a |
| 2 | = | 1 |
Once you understand the trick, you can "prove" anything you want, like 0=1 or 3=5.
The glue that holds the world together
This is a slightly disturbing article from the July 2000 issue of discover magazine.
The Glue That Holds the World Together
The most we learn about subatomic particles called gluons, the more the universe seems to be made of nothing at all
By Robert Kunzig
You do not know what stuff is, you who hold it in your hands. Atoms? Yes, stuff is made of atoms. And every atom is a nucleus orbited by electrons. Every nucleus is built of protons. Every proton is – but there you reach the end of the line. Inside the proton lies the deep, unsettling truth: Stuff is made of nothing, or almost nothing, held together by glue, lots of glue. Physicists first began to suspect this in 1973. Lately it has been proved by experiment.
Bad astronomy
I liked http://www.badastronomy.com. The site includes review of several movies that involve bad astronomy (like Armageddon).
Taxonomists with a sense of humor
From the 26 May 2001 issue of Science News, here are some actual names for real creatures:
Verae peculya
Heerz lukenatcha
Heerz tooya
Apopyllus now (like the movie)
Lalap lusa
Vini vidivici
Ytu brutus
For more fun, take a look at the online references cited in the article.
Taking the LONG view on the future of the planet Earth
This Scientific American article from the June 2001 issue discusses an interesting trick to preserve the habitability of Earth considering that the Sun is getting brighter every year. The solution? Fling an asteroid past Earth every 6000 years or so to slightly nudge the orbit out, preserving the total amount of energy the Earth is exposed to.
What time is it?
Everything you wanted to know about all the different ways to measure time (systems of time) including:
- Universal Time (UT, UT0, UT1)
- Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
- International Atomic Time (TAI)
Follow the "leap second" link on the page for a discussion of how these time systems drift from each other, and how they're corrected. The link also discusses some other units of time like Ephemeris Time (ET).
And if you're curious, Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) was based on the solar mean day.
Web-based 3-D protein viewer
The RSCB Protein Data Bank has a cool protein visualization site.
Click the "SearchLite" link in the right navigation. Then type in a protein name like "insulin". Click "Explore" for the version you want. Finally, click the "View Structure" link in the left navigation column.
You'll need to have the Cosmo VRML plug-in installed. There's a link on the left of the "View Structure" page to help you download it.
Constant speed of light
I liked this short description of the constancy of the speed of light from Scott Adam's DNRC Newsletter #26 (October 1999):
Did you know that if you got in a rocket ship and raced a beam of light, the light would always be faster than you by exactly the speed of light, no matter how fast you went? It sounds like a crackpot idea but it's Einstein's theory. Most scientists agree that Einstein is right even though it makes no sense.