Feeling a bit flaky

Snowed under at work or school? Surrounded by flakes? Take a minute or two to appreciate the real deal. SnowCrystals.com is a website with dozens of lovely pictures of delicate snowflakes and feathery frost. My favorite section is the Myths and Nonsense page.

It was bound to happen

Two atoms are walking down the street and one atom says to the other, "Wait a minute, I think I lost an electron." The other atom asks, "Are you sure?" to which the first atom responds, "Yes, I'm positive."

Eccentric astronomer

Danish nobleman turned astronomer Tycho Brahe was born on December 14, 1546. His accurate astronomical observations were later used by his assistant Johannes Kepler to derive the Laws of Planetary Motion. But he was anything but another boring scientist. Brahe wrangled with mathematicians, lost his nose in a duel and apparently kept a pet moose and a dwarf. Even his death is controversial. He may have been poisoned by his famous assistant.

More Mobius

August Ferdinand Mobius was born on November 17, 1790. He is best known for his co-discovery of the Mobius strip and as a pioneer in Topology, which Sugar³ is studying at present.

If you haven't already, check out yesterday's post featuring a cool video of Mobius Transformations.

It's all relative

One of Sugar³'s favorite quotes:

"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."

~ Albert Einstein

To Not Quite Infinity and Beyond

Today marks anniversaries for two American space ventures. Forty-nine years ago, Pioneer I was the first spacecraft launched by a nascent NASA. Originally slated to go to the moon, Pioneer I fell quite a bit short due to a programming error which caused the 2nd stage rocket to shut down early which then threw off the planned trajectory of the spacecraft. Although it didn't reach its intended mark, Pioneer I still gathered some useful scientific information. As mentioned in a previous post, CrackedPot's father was a quality control engineer with NASA, but he didn't join them until 1959.

CrackedPot's father did work on the successful Apollo 7, which launched on this day in 1968. This mission lasted 10 days, much longer than any of the Soviet space missions. It was also the first time live tv images were seen from a manned spacecraft. As was his habit, CrackedPot's father brought back a mission patch when he returned home from either Cape Canaveral or Houston. (CrackedPot doesn't know which place he was at, only that he went. Back in those days, the parents never thought to share this sort of information with a small teacup.)

Asteroids = Donuts

Math geek humor from the Sugar³: A topologist is a person who can't tell a teacup from a donut. What CrackedPot wants to know is why anyone would want to mangle a delicate teacup when they can use the old classic video arcade game, Asteroids, as a topological donut analogy?

Sputnik's 50th Anniversary

October 4th is the 50th anniversary of the launching of Sputnik, the little Soviet spaceball that sparked a revolution. Reprinted below is a nice email from Ken Harbit that aptly describes Sputnik's impact on us all:

"Fifty years ago tomorrow (October 4 1957) the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (as it was called then) put a 184 pound ball in orbit around the earth. They called it “Sputnik.” I remember my Dad was upset after reading about it in the newspaper. When I asked him about it he said the Soviets made a statement and ended it with the world’s biggest period.

Overnight the “Rat Race” turned into the “Space Race” and the “Computer Age” began. We got a lot of stuff from the aftermath of Sputnik. Freeze-dried food, electric shavers, transistors, the integrated circuit, and Internet.

The computers that guided Friendship 7, the mercury capsule that put Alan Shepard into space in 1961 had 32k of memory and would fill the ground floor of Joyner Library. The computers that guided Apollo 11 to the moon were comparable to two Commodore 64s and would fill most of the ground floor of the library.

On July 16 1969 we effectively ended the “Space Race” with the world’s biggest exclamation mark when Neil Armstrong said “That’s one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind” as he stepped on to the moon.

Today we have computers small enough to be injected under the skin, cell phones millions of times more powerful than the computers that guided man to the moon … and beyond, we have “virtual” stores, libraries, virtual trips into space and to the deepest parts of the oceans.

It's strange to think that it all started with a 184 pound silver colored ball that orbited Earth every 98 minutes sending temperature and pressure readings back to Earth."

CrackedPot's father was a quality control engineer with NASA for the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs in the 1960's and in particular he worked on the Saturn V rocket. He later worked on the Space Shuttle in the 1970's-1980's. CrackedPot can remember him flying off to Cape Canaveral (which was called Cape Kennedy back then) or to Houston for the rocket launches. He would return from these "business trips" with a patch just like the ones the astronauts wore on their spacesuits. To commemorate the successful Apollo 11 mission, he also brought back a tiny lunar landing module necklace. Sadly all these mementos were lost in a burglary and subsequent fire.