Kookaburra

Blue Moon in June - June 30

Well it seems I have started blogging so infrequently that it could be said I post only once in a blue moon - not quite true, as we have 'blue moons' approximately every 2.72 years.

This Saturday we do have a blue moon - the moon is the same colour it's just the name used when a second full moon falls in a calendar month. Take the chance of doing some moon gazing (cloud cover permitting).

Something I only learnt in recent years is that on the day of a full moon, the moon rises very close to the time the sun sets, which makes getting photographs easier as there is still some daylight to light the land.

You can discover your moonrise and sunset times using the calendars available at http://www.sunrisesunset.com/

More reading on the Blue Moon is available via The Sydney Observatory blog.

Showing that comet who's boss

What a wonderful scientific achievement - a direct hit on an errant comet. We bloodied its snout; it will be a while before that arrogant comet thinks about tangling with us again ("Hail the comet, they clocked the rock", Herald, July 5). It ranks with another great achievement: the bombing of the Mediterranean Sea in the film Catch 22. Truly now, humankind has taken its well-known, aggressive outlook to the stars. What a great day. – Frank McQuade, Kogarah, NSW (Letter to the Editor - The Sydney Morning Herald)

Mind Like An Attic

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle via Sherlock Holmes contends that a mind should be an orderly thing

Dr. Watson, describing Sherlock Holmes in "A Study in Scarlet" [source]

"You see," he explained, "I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones."

Einstein tended to agree. Reputedly he didn't even recall his own phone number (can't say I am great at remembering my landline number - the mobile is easier)

ONE OF Einstein's colleagues asked him for his telephone number one day. Einstein reached for a telephone directory and looked it up. "You don't remember your own number?" the man asked, startled.
      "No," Einstein answered. "Why should I memorize something I can so easily get from a book?"

In fact, Einstein claimed never to memorize anything which could be looked up in less than two minutes.

A mind can be like a dustbin - but that's another post.

Richard Feynman: The Douglas Robb Memorial Lectures

Richard Feynman: The Douglas Robb Memorial Lectures - a set of streaming lectures from the late great nobel prize winning physicist.

"A set of four priceless archival recordings from the University of Auckland (New Zealand) of the outstanding Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman - arguably the greatest science lecturer ever. Although the recording is of modest technical quality the exceptional personal style and unique delivery shine through.

Feynman gives us not just a lesson in basic physics but also a deep insight into the scientific mind of a 20th century genius analysing the approach of the 17th century genius Newton.

For the young scientist, brought up in this age of hi-tech PC / PowerPoint-based presentations, we also get an object lesson in how to give a lecture with nothing other than a piece of chalk and a blackboard. Furthermore we are shown how to respond with wit and panache to the technical mishaps that are part-and-parcel of the lecturer's life."

Time travelling plants

An amazing revelation - a time travelling plant. There's is still hope for the carrot seeds I have been meaning to plant for years. My dad's 30+ year old Rhubarb planting pales in insignificance. Now if only those plant seeds had real intelligence and update us on life 2000+ years ago.

Ancient seed sprouts date palm. 13/06/2005. ABC News

Researchers in Israel say they have succeeded in growing a date palm from a seed that is 2,000 years old. The seed was unearthed during an excavation of the ancient mountain fortress of Masada 30 years ago and is thought to be the oldest seed ever germinated.

Researchers in Jerusalem have managed to germinate the seed and grow it to a 30-centimetre high plant. The baby date palm has been nicknamed Methuselah, after a biblical figure said to have lived for nearly 1,000 years. The researchers' achievement may turn out to be more significant than simply bringing an ancient seed back to life.

The discoverers of Methuselah have now sent some of its leaves off for DNA analysis with the hope it might have medicinal uses that are missing in modern cultivated varieties.

- BBC

Astronomical software

My favourite desktop planetarium is Starry Night. It's a mature, well rounded product which provides a view of the night sky from Earth and also the ability to navigate through space and see what the view is like from up there. There's also a whole host of value add learning tools such as DVDs of Deep Space, guided tours of space and regular updates showing new space objects and space events such as comets and planetary transitions.

As you can tell I am a fan and I believe Starry Night™ Complete Space & Astronomy Pack Deluxe Edition represents great value for the whole family at USD$49.95 -- I have no problem plugging a product which clearly has quality and value. It runs on Windows and Mac OS X.

Now you may not be so obsessed or you just want a taste of what's out there. Good news there are a couple of freeware alternatives worth considering.

Stellarium (Mac/Win/etc) - http://stellarium.free.fr/

Stellarium is a free GPL software which renders realistic skies in real time with openGL. It is available for Linux/Unix, Windows and MacOSX. It produces beautifully rendered skys and handles part of Starry Night's function, delivering the view from Earth.

Celestia delivers the other part of the core Starry Nights functionality - the view of being in and moving through space. Celestia runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X - though sadly the Mac OS X implementation does not have the full feature set (yet).

There is an amazing community building around Celestia contributing additional images and content to the community. It's all hosted on the Celestiamotherlode and includes planets, spacecraft both real and fictional - Trekkers, Babylon 5 and 2001 fans will find lots of bits to play with.

Now we've mastered space, I need to figure out how to master time - this jet lag is hitting me hard.

On fools and fanatics

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. - Bertrand Russell

Whacky weather

It was a big 24 hours of weather in Melbourne. Biggest 24 hour period of rain since records began in the 1850s. No damage here (home) but major disruption to roads. We've heard of several people having trees down on their houses. Violent weather in Sydney as well.

Stormchasers.au.com has photos of the deluge -- 2nd & 3rd February 2005 - Lows and flooding rains, Melbourne

Hard to say we're not seeing climate change.

Liberty vs Physics - physics wins

Sadly some folks stupidly maintain that they should be at complete liberty not to wear seatbelts, despite their proven worth in saving lives.

Snopes.com documents the true and sad case of a anti-seat belt campaigner who tragically is killed within months in an accident which he would have survived had he been wearing his seat belt.

On this topic it's well worth reading a Malcolm Gladwell article first published in The New Yorker -- gladwell dot com--Wrong Turn: How the fight to make America's highways safer went off course.

The synopsis is that the US authorities made a fatal decision to push passive restraints such as airbags without also promoting seatbelts. An airbag is a supplementary restraint (SRS) and is relatively ineffective compared to a seatbelt alone - of course the combination of seatbelt and airbag is best. The 'experts' believed that 'machines' not 'men' were the answer - spend the money on gizmos not education. The result was that thousands of Americans died because they were denied the public education that their compatriots in other parts of the world were given, such as UK, Australia and New Zealand.

Physics is the law of nature. We can't escape the consequences of physics, particularly driving a potentially lethal weapon on slippery road. Yet there seems little effort (at least in my country - Australia) to ensure that learner drivers are also learning the laws that will seriously impact their safety (and that of others) on the open road. We should resurrect Julius Sumner Miller and have him posthumously teach us physics in the real world. "A car skids off into the bushes. Why is it so?"

Great Moments in Science - Lemmings Suicide Myth

Lemmings Suicide Myth: Well which lawyer is going to represent the lemmings who have been vilified and defamed by being labelled as suicidal. It seems the Walt Disney Co. are behind yet more myth making. [source Dr Karl - abc.net.au]