http://www.illuminatingscience.org The latest science and a look at life in physics Sat, 02 Feb 2008 13:11:05 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I was just reading a Facebook post in a Christian group by someone named Billy Joyce. It's a carbon copy of countless of ignorant people, sadly most of them religious. Here's what he said: Recently, astronomers discovered an "old star" (100 billion years old apparently) that was giving birth to ... http://www.illuminatingscience.org/scientists-dont-know-everything-thats-the-point/ If you've never heard this question, you're in for an experience. This (along with the Monty Hall problem) has got to be the most controversial problem in physics, ever. Seriously. Check out these discussions. It gets seriously aggressive! So what gets people so impassioned? Here's the ... http://www.illuminatingscience.org/plane-on-a-conveyor-belt/ In a recent discussion about education, this YouTube video came up: Math Education: An Inconvenient Truth. It's a look at some of the curricula used in American schools, and asks the question: what should students be expected to know at the end of Year 5? In particular, should we teach ... http://www.illuminatingscience.org/what-should-we-learn/ So, it's been quite a while since my last post, partially due to travel, partially due to business, and partially due to rethinking what this blog should really be doing. I've decided that there are already enough people commenting on science, and I can't really add anything. But more and ... http://www.illuminatingscience.org/back-to-blogging/ So, I've jumped on the hot/instant ice bandwagon. This is the stuff that's found in those instant heat packs - you know, the ones where you click the metal disc inside, and the liquid pad turns solid and heats up. The actual chemical involved is sodium acetate, which ... http://www.illuminatingscience.org/sodium-acetate-instant-ice/ This is faintly creepy - a cat that can predict deaths in a hospital. It's not quite like a feline Grim (ala Harry Potter) where the cat turns up and they just die - rather that the cat somehow senses when they're almost ready to go and will curl ... http://www.illuminatingscience.org/cat-predicts-patients-deaths/ Have you seen the incredible Water Powered Clock? Amazingly, it's a clock that runs entirely on water! That's right, just add water - that's all you need! There's also a water powered calculator and soon our cars, planes and computers will all run on water! ... http://www.illuminatingscience.org/water-powered-clocks/ My life is over. The PhDComics guy, George Chan, is coming to Australia in September. And I'm planning to be away, travelling around the Northern Territory doing science shows. I mean, the latter is good, but I've been wanting to see him for YEARS! *sigh* Apparently he's going to be ... http://www.illuminatingscience.org/noooooooooooooooooo/ [Here's my take on the Hat Problem, collating a couple of different problems.] Three brilliant mathematicians have been kidnapped by Dr Evil, who is forcing them to play the Hat Game! He lines them up, blindfolded, one after the other, facing a wall, so that C can see B and A, ... http://www.illuminatingscience.org/hat-problem/ To celebrate the upcoming release of Harry Potter Book 7, I thought I'd write about something that always bugged me. At the end of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (which I've just re-read) Harry and Hermione are trapped in a room, and have to solve a riddle to find ... http://www.illuminatingscience.org/harry-potter-solving-the-potions-riddle/