Carnal Reason

Hat tip to the Fresh Bilge blog, which I recently started reading. It introduced me to this amazing photograph, which deserves a wide audience.

Posted on April 20th, 2008 by pwyll
Filed under: science | 2 Comments »

Physicist John Archibald Wheeler has died at age 96. Richard Feynman, a student of Wheeler, is said to have remarked “Some people think Wheeler’s gotten crazy in his later years, but he’s always been crazy.” Considering the source, that was a great compliment.
If you ever get the chance, spend a few minutes looking at Gravitation, [...]

Posted on April 14th, 2008 by pwyll
Filed under: books, science | 2 Comments »

For the first time in the history of this blog, I am going to say something nice about the NY Times. In an article called And Behind Door No. 1, a Fatal Flaw, John Tierney gives the most lucid explanation of the Monty Hall paradox that I have ever read.

Here’s how Monty’s deal [...]

Posted on April 8th, 2008 by pwyll
Filed under: science | 2 Comments »

Seedmagazine has a fascinating new article that begins like this:

In the basement of a university in Lausanne, Switzerland sit four black boxes, each about the size of a refrigerator, and filled with 2,000 IBM microchips stacked in repeating rows. Together they form the processing core of a machine that can handle 22.8 trillion [...]

Posted on March 4th, 2008 by pwyll
Filed under: science | 1 Comment »

Posted on April 21st, 2007 by pwyll
Filed under: cartoon, religion, science | Comments Off

British television’s Channel 4 recently aired a documentary called “The Great Global Warming Swindle”. It can currently be seen in its entirety courtesy of Google Video. You can either stream it or download it via a button on the streaming page. The movie runs just shy of 1:16 in length, and is fascinating throughout. [...]

Posted on March 11th, 2007 by pwyll
Filed under: eco-catastrophe, science | 1 Comment »