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Astronomy Buff

Archive for April 2008

April 30th, 2008

New Contest: Sudoku for Haiku

Okay, new contest. Sudoku for Astronomy Haiku.

It’s easy. Write me haikus and you could win your very own Sudoku Hand-held Game!
So, anyway, here is the deal:
I have somehow ended up with two very nice hand-held electronic sudoku games. One of them, the igadget sudoku, even has a backlit screen. Fancy. […]

By Tony -- 5 comments

April 30th, 2008

Turtle Cosmology: infinite regression

Many of you have probably heard this story, but I am going to blog about it for the heck of it because I love this story so much.
The most famous version of this story is pretty much the way it appeared in Stephen Hawking’s 1988 book A Brief History of Time, and it […]

By Tony -- 0 comments

April 30th, 2008

I greet you, double knob, children of Mars

s m a i s m r m i l m e p o e t a l e u m i b u n e n u g t t a u i r a s
Now rotate your decoder ring two half turns left…..
Actually, the above mish-mash of letters is an anagram.
An […]

By Tony -- 0 comments

April 30th, 2008

Gulliver Traveled to Mars?

Gulliver must’ve traveled to Mars.
How else do you explain the fact that Jonathon Swift, writer of Gulliver’s Travels, predicted the two moons of Mars and their approximate positions over a hundred years before their discovery?
Explain that.
I think Gulliver must’ve made a pit-stop to Mars somewhere down the line.
Here […]

By Tony -- 0 comments

April 27th, 2008

The Heavenly Body (1944)

I watched this movie called “The Heavenly Body” starring Hedy Lamarr on Turner Classic Movies. I am not sure why the movie is called “The Heavenly Body” …..unless they are referring to how astronomically hot Hedy is. What is the name Hedy short for? Hedwig?
Anyway, the plot goes like this: an astronomer […]

By Tony -- 0 comments

April 22nd, 2008

Happy Earth Day, Theta

Dear Theta:
You are but a capital, cursive O. Theta, you are but a zero with a curvy line. An egg with a skull cap. You are but a simply decorated easter egg. How simple you are–yet, so useful. You, you, simple symbol, simple ambassador of mathematics, physics, meteorology…. Just […]

By Tony -- 1 comment

April 20th, 2008

Quote on a Starbuck’s Cup

I love coffee. I lurveth it. I slurpeth it. Without it, I am a worthless lump of astronomer.
I do not drink Starbuck’s coffee often, as I prefer the local coffee from Columbia Street Roastery in good ‘ol Champaign, IL.
With that said, I must share with you this cute-cup quote:

Coffeecup photo […]

By Tony -- 2 comments

April 20th, 2008

Happy National Poetry Month, Astronomybuffs!

http://www.stargazing.net/kevin/poetry.html
April is National Poetry Month.
What better way to celebrate National Poetry Month than to write an astronomy limerick or haiku?
Haiku is 3 lines: 5 syllables in first line, 7 syllables in second line, 5 syllables in last line.
Okay, here is an example:
Astronomybuff,
I carry them in my heart,
how I love thy blogs.
Now, I want to see […]

By Tony -- 2 comments

April 20th, 2008

Oopsie-Doopsies

See story summary here:
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080417/tod-space-astronomy-germany-us-offbeat-f62056d.html
Nasa Vs. little German boy: who was right, anyway?
1:450, or 1:45,000?
One zero, or three?
Viva la scientific notation!
Where you put the commas and the zeros….
…… makes a BIG difference!
It turns out that the German Whizkid boy was wrong about the probability of the Apophis asteroid colliding with […]

By Tony -- 1 comment

April 20th, 2008

Are there earthquakes on other planets?

No–or at least not that we know of– or have studied in depth. Earth is the only planet in our solar system that has been observed to have active plate tectonic activity in our crust. There is no current evidence of plate tectonic activity elsewhere in the solar system. So, you see, […]

By Tony -- 1 comment

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