This is the time of year when the Easter bunny hops throughout the land, distributing eggs to children (he silliest bit of folklore-cum-advertising gimmick I’ve ever heard, but we seem to be stuck with it). What better topic for a column, then, than rabbits?–which, as anyone who has read Watership Down can tell you, are …
Category: Blog
Mathematics
I’m going to say something which, alas, will probably immediately alienate me from a large number of readers: I’ve always enjoyed math. Times tables held no terrors for me, fractions I found fascinating, and algebra–ah, algebra! When I first started taking algebra, I enjoyed it so much I’d make up equations out of thin air …
Candles
There’s something about the flickering flame of a candle that we seem to find irresistible. When we want to create a special mood, or a feeling of warmth and hominess when the weather and the world are cold and frightful, we light a candle–but we seldom meditate on its history and science. As usual, I’d …
ENIAC
Fifty years ago this month, a machine in the University of Pennsylvania’s Moore School of Electrical Engineering solved in 20 seconds an equation that would have required a human mathematician using a desk calculator 40 hours. The feat astounded the world, and launched the age of computers. The machine was the Electronic Numerical Integrator and …
Roses
Valentine’s Day, just past, might just as well be called Rose Day, so popular is that particular flower that day. But few people reflect, as they give or receive these beautiful blooms, on the science associated with them. Allow me to rectify that oversight. The term “rose” is applied to flowering plants that are members …
Algae
They lurk in the water. They look harmless. But sometimes–not always, but sometimes–they can cause sickness: even death. “They” are blue-green algae, and it’s a bit startling to think that algae, something we think of, when we think of them at all, as an unsightly but harmless scum, can be toxic–because most algae, most of …
Seasonal affective disorder
Nobody (nobody human, anyway) likes getting up on a cold winter’s day when it’s still dark and the wind is howling, but for some people it’s more than just unpleasant: it’s almost impossible. They suffer from a form of depression called Seasonal Affective Disorder (also known, appropriately, as SAD). Seasonal depression has probably been around …
Melting ice in Antarctica
Considering how cold it’s been around here recently, global warming sounds not so much like an environmental problem as it does something devoutly to be wished for–but as someone once said, “Be careful what you wish for–you may get it.” While it’s true that science has yet to come flat out and say that global …
The science of tires
It happens to all of us sooner or later. We’re in a hurry, we head off in our car–and discover we have a flat tire. This happened to me twice in December, and got me thinking about tires, which is unusual, because usually we don’t think much about tires at all. After all, they’re pretty …
Influenza
The single phrase that’s probably heard more this time of the year than any other, aside from “Cold enough for ya?”, is “the flu.” “Jimmy’s come down with the flu.” “I won’t be in today, I’ve got a touch of the flu.” “Hey, have you caught the flu that’s going around?” Although we tend to …
Acoustics
In 1982 I toured Europe with the Harding University A Cappella Chorus. Among the many interesting places we sang was the ancient Greek theatre at Epidaurus. Carved out of the side of a hill in the fourth century A.D., it seats 14,000 and boasts such perfect acoustics that any one of those 14,000 can hear …
Calendars
It’s 1996, which means it’s time to take down your old Star Trek calendar and put up your new one. Okay, so maybe you don’t have a Star Trek calendar. Maybe you have a World’s Fastest Cars calendar, or even (gag) a Friends calendar. The point is, for us, a calendar is a much an aesthetic and/or advertising medium as it …
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