Archive for the ‘Science & technology’ Category
A question for you
October 10th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
Over the centuries, it was placed at the Canary & Madeira Islands, the Azores, the Cape Verde Islands, Rome, Copenhagen, Jerusalem, St Petersburg, Pisa, Paris, and Philadelphia (among other places) before it finally settled down in London. What is it?
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Evolution vs creationism
October 8th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
A friend has drawn my attention to this story on the BBC web site which appeared while I was away in Prague last week. It seems that some British teachers are finding it harder to explain evolution because of the view that creationism is not simply a metaphor for construction of the universe by a […]
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The start of the space age
October 2nd, 2007 by Roger Darlington
This week – actually on Thursday – sees an interesting anniversary. Sputnik 1, which was launched by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957, was the first artificial satellite to be put into geocentric orbit. This really was the beginning of the space age and this week we commemorate the 50th anniversary of that event. […]
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Are mobiles harmful to health?
September 15th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
This week saw the publication of a 64-page study from the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Programme. The programme is funded to the tune of £8.8M and has taken six years. It collated the work of 28 studies it has backed as well other research from around the world. And the conclusion of the report? […]
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What is a gamma-ray burst?
September 5th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
You may not have heard of the phenomenon known as a gamma-ray burst (GRB), but these things – short-lived bursts of gamma-ray photons, the most energetic form of light – are the most luminous events known in the universe since the Big Bang and they shine hundreds of times brighter than a typical supernova and […]
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How any sub-atomic particles are there?
August 29th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
I ask because currently I’m reading a book by John Gribbin called “In Search Of Schrödinger’s Cat” and subtitled “Quantum Physics And Reality”. When my parents went to school in the 1930s, they were taught that the smallest particle was the atom, although the electron was discovered in 1897, the proton was discovered in 1918, […]
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How small is an atom?
August 24th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
I send out a “Thought For The Week” and this week’s thought is as follows: “The range of sizes, distances or speeds with which our imaginations are comfortable is a tiny band, set in the midst of a gigantic range of the possible, from the scale of quantum strangeness at the smaller end to the […]
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How BIG is the universe?
August 24th, 2007 by Roger Darlington
I send out a “Thought For The Week” and this week’s thought is as follows: “The range of sizes, distances or speeds with which our imaginations are comfortable is a tiny band, set in the midst of a gigantic range of the possible, from the scale of quantum strangeness at the smaller end to the […]
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“Enemies Of Reason” (2)
August 22nd, 2007 by Roger Darlington
I’ve been away so I’ve only just seen the second programme in the two-part series on Channel Four television entitled “Enemies Of Reason”. In the first programme – on which I blogged here – Richard Dawkins attacked astrology, card reading, clairvoyance and dowsing. In this programme, he targeted various non-scientific claims to healing such as […]
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Same objects but different words
August 21st, 2007 by Roger Darlington
In space it is called a meteoroid; in the atmosphere, it is termed a meteor; and, once it reaches earth, we describe it as a meteorite. In the North Atlantic and Northeast Pacific, it is called a hurricane; in the Northwest Pacific, it is termed a typhoon; and, in the Indian Ocean, it is described […]
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