Perihelion of Maria

philphys: The Good Life from What I Believe, Bertrand Russell

Tue, 15 May 2012 19:58:34 -0400

philphys:

The Good Life from What I Believe, Bertrand Russell

physicsphysics: Thanks, obscurelivelihood! Just like the old...

Mon, 07 May 2012 07:00:48 -0400

physicsphysics:

Thanks, obscurelivelihood!

Just like the old times love ‘kiya’

emergentfutures: Do E-Books Make It Harder to Remember What You...

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 09:03:10 -0400

emergentfutures:

Do E-Books Make It Harder to Remember What You Just Read?

Digital books are lighter and more convenient to tote around than paper books, but there may be advantages to old technology.

Paul Higgins: The evidence here seems a bit flimsy but it is a reasonable question to ask. The wider question must be in the context of how those e-books are used more generally. If I carry around a set of important e-books on my iPad and keep referring to them for information then that is likely to reinforce my knowledge more than the paper versions which I could never physically carry around in the same way. There are also social questions to ask with new sharing and annotating systems developing. The question of learning has to be in the context of how the e-books are used in total.

Full Story: Time

she dazzles by the head light she radiates perfect beauty in...

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 17:45:00 -0500

she dazzles by the head light

she radiates perfect beauty

in every whisper of her sweet voice

thy heart mesmerize

-RNV (Perihelion of maria)

Photo

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 08:54:58 -0500

"You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she..."

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 23:31:53 -0500

“You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She’s not perfect - you aren’t either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break - her heart. So don’t hurt her, don’t change her, don’t analyze and don’t expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she’s not there.”

- Bob Marley (via arreter)

"As long as what you want does not cause harm to others, you never need to apologize for pursuing..."

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 23:08:40 -0500

“As long as what you want does not cause harm to others, you never need to apologize for pursuing your own dreams and big ideas.”

- Chris Guillebeau in The Art of Non-Conformity (p.37, ¶1)

philphys: “Science can help us to get over this craven fear in...

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 09:10:27 -0500

philphys:

“Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a fit place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it.”

-Bertrand Russell

"As a day well spent makes sleep seem pleasant, so a life well employed makes death pleasant. A life..."

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 02:36:26 -0500

““As a day well spent makes sleep seem pleasant, so a life well employed makes death pleasant. A life well spent is long.””

- Leonardo da Vinci (via tanasoca)

"It is sometimes said that scientists are unromantic, that their passion to figure out robs the world..."

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 03:27:52 -0500

“It is sometimes said that scientists are unromantic, that their passion to figure out robs the world of beauty and mystery. But is it not stirring to understand how the world actually works — that white light is made of colors, that color is the way we perceive the wavelengths of light, that transparent air reflects light, that in so doing it discriminates among the waves, and that the sky is blue for the same reason that the sunset is red? It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it.”

- Carl Sagan (via philphys)

sciencecenter: The next time you complain about the rain… let...

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 03:25:11 -0500

sciencecenter:

The next time you complain about the rain… let this dragonfly give you a bit of perspective.

"Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions since no..."

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 03:22:59 -0500

“Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.”

- Bertrand Russell, Problems of Philosophy (via philphys)

kidsneedscience: The good news first: after the Winter...

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 09:47:12 -0500

kidsneedscience:

The good news first: after the Winter Solstice yesterday, the days only get longer here in the Northern Hemisphere. To all of you down in the Southern Hemisphere, enjoy your summer! Yesterday’s post on the solstice explained that because of Earth’s location on the ecliptic, December 22, 2011 was the year’s shortest day. What is the ecliptic? The word itself came in the late 14th century directly and virtually unchanged from the Ancient Greek word ekliptos having the same meaning as the English word eclipse, but came to us via the Middle Latin expression (linea) ecliptica meaning the line of the eclipse. The (linea) ecliptica was simply denoting the line that eclipses fell on. The image should make clear what is happening-from our perspective one can draw a line from earth out to the heavens through the sun and get the line of the ecliptic. When the moon crosses that line, eclipses can occur.

Image (left) of the line of the ecliptic projected onto the constellations courtesy Tau’olunga under CC 3.0 unported license. Image (right) of earth and ecliptic courtesy NASA in the public domain.

"In the mountains of truth you will never climb in vain: either you will get up higher today or you..."

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 03:48:02 -0500

“In the mountains of truth you will never climb in vain: either you will get up higher today or you will exercise your strength so as to be able to get up higher tomorrow.”

- Nietzsche (via philphys)

"My own experience and development deepen everyday my conviction that our moral progress may be..."

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 23:11:53 -0500

“My own experience and development deepen everyday my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy.”

- George Eliot (via philphys)

"New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without anyother reason but because they are..."

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 23:10:09 -0500

“New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without anyother reason but because they are not already common.”

- John Locke (via theweirdthewonderful)

sayitwithscience: Refraction Light waves are part of the EM...

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 21:37:25 -0500

sayitwithscience:

Refraction

Light waves are part of the EM wave spectrum. When moving through an optical medium (i.e. air, glass, etc. …), the E field of the wave excites the electrons within the medium, causing them to oscillate, as a result, the light wave slows down slightly due to the loss of some of its kinetic energy. Its new speed is always less than that of the speed of light in a vacuum (v
         c
     n = -
         v
          speed of light in a vacuum
       = ----------------------------
         speed of light in the medium
n = 1 in a vacuum
n = more than 1 in all other media
Refraction itself occurs when light passes across an interface between two media with different indices of refraction. As a general rule (which can be derived by Snell’s law below), light refracts towards the normal when passing to a medium with a higher refractive index, and away from the normal when moving to a medium of lower refractive index.

Snell’s Law:

n₁sinα = n₂sinβ

where n₁ is the refractive index of the first medium

Reflection

One of the properties of a boundary between optical media is that some of the light that’s approaching the interface at the angle of incidence (α) is reflected back into the first medium, while the rest continues on into the second medium at the angle of refraction (β).

Angle of incidence = Angle of Reflection

74%

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 06:41:53 -0500

74%:

jtotheizzoe:

That’s the amount of climate change attributed specifically to man-made activities, according to a new study. More at Nature News.

"Drunkenness is temporary suicide."

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 06:33:17 -0500

“Drunkenness is temporary suicide.”

- Bertrand Russell (via philphys)

"For most of history, Anonymous was a woman."

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 07:11:35 -0500

““For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.””

- Virginia Woolf (via sterlingbeauty)