Fear
What do you know about the fear of comets?
The fear of comets can be a natural reaction to a sudden unexplainable phenomena. Yes, the arrival of a comet can be a frightening event, but this happens no more. Almost every cosmic activity like comets that threatens us can be predicted with the aid of the telescope.
However, when the fear for those celestial bodies is induced from outside us, the experience can be traumatic, specially if it is preached based on biblical faith. this is exactly what David Brandt Berg did for his followers. He tried to convince the people and kids of his cult that the incoming comet "COULD BE THE TOTAL DOWNFALL OF AMERICA, the collapse of the currency and/or economic system". Read the full article here.
Infinite
Three unexpected behaviors of the infinite
Infinity is not a number, however, it can be split, sorted, randomized, mapped, diagonalized, separated, or counted. In the Tarot cards deck, the magician (Le Bateleur) represents the unlimited and infinite power. But outside of this esoteric deck of cards, in the real world, there are other magicians that play and reshuffle the infinite as if it were an infinite deck of playing cards. People like the ancient Greek mathematicians and philosophers, people like the contemporary George Cantor, and Jorge Luis Borges.
Infinity is an elusive and hard to comprehend concept, however, there are some curious ideas, stories, and explanations that sometimes leave us with the sense that the infinite ─more than an unreachable frontier─ is an unexplainable and unending vertigo. Read the full article here.
SETI
What do you know about the Paradox of the Great Silence?
Since 1962, scientists have been sending radio messages to the outer space. The first one was a three-word message sent from Evpatoria, in Ukraine. A few years later, a second message was sent to the cosmic space from Arecibo, Puerto Rico, and some years later two more messages were sent from Evpatoria again. In all cases the messages were sending information about all us, to unknown civilizations that may capture those well-intentioned signals, but that can be used for who knows what purposes.
However, in order to take no risks should we stop sending data from us while at the same time keep silently trying to hear their messages? A couple of years ago, the Russian astrophysicist Alexander Zaitsev saw a contradiction in this attitude. This contradiction is what is now know as The Paradox of the Great Silence. Read the full article here .
Pyramids
What do you know about the pyramid inside the Moon?
Near 1985, David Berg (1919-1994), the founder of the religious movement he called Children of God/The Family, in one of his communications to his followers stated that there is a pyramid inside the Moon. This pyramid was exactly the home of the Heavenly City.
That Heavenly City is the one mentioned in the book of Revelations in the Bible, in Chapter 21:16. But Berg claimed that this Divine City is not far away in the cosmos, but right inside the Moon, very, very near us! Read the full article here .
Space burials
What do you know about the first burial on the Moon?
Only one man has had the privilege of being "buried" outside of our terrestrial cemeteries. He never mentioned he wished to be on the Moon as his final destination; he wanted to an astronaut, but because of health concerns, he was rejected.
But, as an act of love when he died, his wife took the necessary steps so that after he was cremated, his remains in ashes were taken to the Moon. Who was this man? Who was this marvelous wife? What was their love story? Read the full article here .
Moon Trees
What do you know about the Moon Trees?
In the Apollo 14 manned lunar mission of January 31, 1971, the astronaut Stuart Roosa (1933-1994) carried to the Moon some 500 tree seeds as part of a joint U.S. Forest Service/NASA project. The seeds were germinated on his return from the Moon and planted throughout the United States.
What ever happened to those tree seeds? Did they really grow when returned to Earth, and if so, where are they now? Read the full article here.
Complex surfaces
What are conformal mappings?
Transformations, mappings, functions, are all names for warping a region of a plane into another shape or surface. In mathematics, transformations are essential for the study of physical applications like fluids flow, electrostatics, aerodynamics, etc. Most of the time, these applications require handling complex variables and one-to-one (1-1) transformations, also called conformal mapping. Mauritus Escher experimented with a variation of these functions creating a lithograph with some kind of Droste effect. Among these mathematical mappings is the beautiful complex sine function. Read the full article here.
Perspective Drawing
Drawing true perspective
How easy it is to draw true life perspective? It depends; for complicated machinery parts it is difficult, but for common objects, scenery, and landscapes, it is fairy easy. Pen and ink drawing is the perfect start for the hidden artist within you. You'll be surprised at just how easy it is to create simple masterpieces when you follow the examples found in this book available for free download. Looking for a free art book to start drawing perspective? This is the place! Learn the basics of drawing, or sharpen your skills with The Essentials of Perspective. Read or download the book here!
The Infinite
Where does the infinite begin?
Where does the infinite begin? At the end of the largest natural number? At the end of the largest real number? But, is this possible to attain?
The infinite begins right with the number 1, this is the exact "position" we can mark as: "infinitude starts here!".
In addition to this, does infinitude needs a starting point, or is it us that need this initial staring point as a reference to deal with such elusive concept? You don't need college math to understand why the infinite is so near to zero. Read the full article here.
Critical Books
The Deluge In The Light Of Modern Science
The narrative of the Deluge is part of the foundations of many religious beliefs. There are hundreds and hundreds of writings and texts about this story, almost all of them supporting the legend just because other ancient books says so.
The Deluge In The Light Of Modern Science by William Denton is an inquiry into the facts told in the Noah's story as it appears in the Christian Bible. He is very explicit in his questions, without being irreverent. For example he asserts:
A journey to the polar regions would be necessary to obtain the white bear, the musk-ox, of which seven would be required, since it is a clean beast; seven reindeer, likewise; the white fox, the polar hare, the lemming, and seven of each species of cormorant, gannet, penguin, petrel, and gull, some of which are as large as eagles, as well as mergansers, geese, and ducks, certain species of which are only found in the frigid zone. Noah or his agents must have discovered Greenland and North America thousands of years before Columbus was born.
Download and read this critical EBook now!
Geometry
How to draw a straight line
Why is it easier to draw a circle than to draw a straight line?
The fact is that it is easier to doubt of the straightness of a line drawn with a straightedge than to doubt of the roundness of a circle drawn with a compass. Any high school student is aware of this.
The straightedge is not the only tool for drawing straight lines; there are other ways via the use of linkages. In the recent free EBook —released by the Gutenberg Project and reformatted by Datum— by A. B. Kempe, he shows us some mechanical linkages that can perform as if they were straightedges. Learn more, and download the EBook here.
Big numbers
The Eddington number
They are a few, but some of them are really big. I'm talking about the 'constants' of the physical universe that surrounds us. For example, the speed of light is 299,792,458 metres per second. Another example is the Avogadro's number, NA= 6.022 141 99 * 1023 that is the amount of atoms or molecules needed to make up a mass equal to the substance's atomic or molecular mass, in grams.
But how do scientist come out with those huge numbers? By theory implications or deductions, and by laboratory experiments.
The Arthur Eddington's number NEdd = 15 747 724 136 275 002 577 605 653 961 181 555 468 044 717 914 527 116 709 366 231 425 076 185 631 031 296 comes out by none of the above.
This 'constant' --the mother of all of them-- is the brainchild of only one person: Sir Arthur Eddington. According to him, this number is the exact amount of protons in the visible universe.
What are the implications of this number for the scientific community? Read the full article here.
