This week I will be playing host to the carnival of space and telling you about what other people are writing about astronomy and space. Read on to learn more…
Carnival of space #235
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Introducing Sciteit
For the past month and a bit, I’ve been working on a project called sciteit in my spare time. I don’t know if anyone reads this blog regularly enough to realize that I haven’t been updating it much recently, but if you have, this is why. Sciteit, (pronounced cite-it), is a website intended to allow people to share scientific articles, rank them by voting on them and discuss them. Why did I put so much time and effort into this? Why should you care? Read on and find out…
The universe in a box…. Part 2 – To stand in the stream of float on a raft?
Last time I talked about how computers have been used to understand how complicated systems such as clusters of stars, or discs of dust orbiting newly born stars behave. This is done by setting up a snapshot of a system, then using simple physical laws such as Newton’s law of gravity, to tell us what that system will look like a little bit later on. By repeating this process a number of times we can then work out what the system will look like at any time in the future. In principal this is all there is to it, however, in reality there are a number of limitations on this procedure that have to be handled. Read on as I try and describe the mysteries of the universe using a swimming pool.
If you squint it kind of looks like a nebula right?
The universe in a box…
Computers are amazing things. The PC that you throw into the tip today is many orders of magnitude more powerful than the computers that guided Apollo 11 to land on the moon. This is probably of importance to most people because it allows us to do things like use the internet, easily produce and edit documents and photos, play video games etc. Perhaps less well known, but no less profound is how the availability of abundant computer power has opened up completely new avenues of scientific exploration that were previously impossible. The ways in which computers have impacted science are innumerable, and I will not attempt to list them. Today I want to talk about one of the most ambitious applications of this computing power, the attempt to recreate or “simulate” part (or even all) of the universe inside a box.
(Image taken from The Millennium Simulation Project)
What makes something valuable?
Today I thought I’d continue with my attempts to explore basic economic ideas (see money and profit) and talk about the idea of value. Little did I realize, that different ideas about how to “value” a good or service, are one of the main areas of competition between different economic theories. I won’t pretend to know the details of the different schools, so I won’t make any connection between the different ideas presented here and the economic schools that endorse them. As always, wikipedia is a good starting point if you would like to know the details of the different ideas on value. But if you’re happy with one man’s rambling attempt to discuss the topic, read on…
Just another average post…
Average – Being intermediate between extremes, as on a scale. For example, “a player of average ability”.
Today I want to talk about what will seem like the most trivial of things, the meaning of the word average. We all have an intuitive sense about what is meant by, “the average”, as it is a part of our everyday language. If you say you’ve had an average day, that someone is of average height or your meal was of average quality, everyone will understand roughly what you mean. The problem occurs because in addition to this everyday usage of the word, average has a precise mathematical meaning. Most of the time, the mathematical usage of the word agrees quite well with our intuitive sense of the word. However, there are times where the two meanings refer to very different things, which is the source of much confusion, misinformation and deception.
