Monthly Archives: December 2011

Physics and Astronomy at Western Blog, Physics and Astronomy at Western What's Happening

#westernu Grad Student in Frantic Frenzy to Finish Poster by this morning!

December 1, 2011

#westernu Grad Student in Frantic Frenzy to Finish Poster by this morning

[warning: post contains graphic images, view at your own choosing]

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting is the largest worldwide conference in the geophysical sciences, attracting nearly [over] 20,000 Earth and space scientists, educators, students, and policy makers. This meeting showcases current scientific theory focused on discoveries that will benefit humanity and ensure a sustainable future for our planet.

UWO P&A’s own Crown Emily is at wits end with deep Fear and Loathing over her advisor’s insistence she get her poster to the printer by EOB yesterday for printing (see photo). Emily worked past 4 (pm) last night making crucial decisions on the poster (she decided on Times New Roman over Times) and picked up today at the crack of noon, when she decided it would be wise to do that analysis she had written about so lavishly last September for her abstract.

“Bob is such a nudge-nik on these things, he thinks just because there are 5,000 posters in the queue to be printed by Monday morning mine won’t be ready. As if, I’m at Western, not like ***** (institutional name deleted at publisher’s insistence).”

Crows Robin and Justin were not available for comment, as they had finished their posters last week and were last seen heading out to play squash.

The Old Crow has the honor (?) of being on the AGU Fall Meeting Blog Roll and intends to type up a storm down there next week (Dec 5 to 9) as he roams the poster hall. Follow @robin_wing, Emily and I via twitter (@purplecrowlidar), facebook (The Purple Crow Lidar) or directly on our blog, Scatterings.

(originally posted by Robert Sica)

Physics and Astronomy at Western Blog, Physics and Astronomy at Western What's Happening

Mars, Ice, Water, Life . . . Ethical Dilemma?

In the past few years, discoveries of ice on Mars, and evidence appearing to show proof of liquid water on the planet, have raised the serious possibility of Martian (microbial) life, either now or sometime in the past. Then a little less than two weeks ago, NASA’s Curiosity rover successfully launched. Its primary goal is to dig up more evidence that suggests life, or the holy grail – evidence of life itself.

All of this raises a whole host of other issues, including, and importantly, ethical ones. If life is found on the red planet, what should we do about it? Are we obligated to abandon exploration or give up on an idea of expanding to Mars, to let it follow its own path? After all, humanity’s track record when it comes to colonizing new worlds is not impressive, so do we get the right to more? And what sort of interference with the evolutionary process (if any) might be acceptable? On Earth we experiment on single-celled life all the time. We encourage our children to do so. Would it make a difference – should it make a difference – if the life we’re looking at came from somewhere else? And if the answer’s yes, doesn’t that imply something about how we define life in the first place?

Just a few questions without answers. At the moment they’re fairly trivial, but if Curiosity finds something, or when, eventually, something somewhere is found, they’re going to be very important. Looking forward to that day.

(originally posted by LizGray)

Humour, Physics and Astronomy at Western What's Happening

More about The Chicken!

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Archimedes: Give me a place to stand, and I can move the chicken across the road.

Albert Einstein: Do not worry about your troubles with chickens; I can assure you that mine are greater.

Pierre de Fermat: I have found an admirable explanation of this, but the margin is too narrow to contain it.

Kurt Godel: It cannot be proven that the chicken crossed the road.

Issac Newton: If chickens have been able to cross the road, it is because they have stood on the shoulders of giants.

Zeno: It went halfway, then half again, then half yet again…but the chicken never got to the other side.

 

These are from the book Math Jokes 4 Mathy Folks. A website with a subset of the jokes in the book can be found at www.mathjokes4mathyfolks.com. Great fun for the mathematically minded, and a some jokes related to physics are there as well.

Physics and Astronomy at Western What's Happening

Ultimate Death Wish: Comet Lovejoy will dive into the Sun today!

Comet Lovejoy is a Sun-razer, which was discovered by an Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy on 27th November 2011. Comet Lovejoy will make the closest approach to the Sun today at 7p.m. EST. It will narrowly miss the Sun by passing just ~140,000 kilometers from the Solar Photosphere. It will likely vaporize before narrowly missing the Sun.

Here is an article’s on Discovery!!!