What’s Nu

   (Feb ’21) New Book Review:  “The Signal and the Noise” by Nate Silver (Feb ’21)   It’s a glorious time to be a nerd, especially when data geeks like Nate Silver can become famous for accurate statistical predictions of national elections. Silver wrote this book to bring his love for Bayesian probability calculations to the masses. Read along (in my blog post), as I describe to you what I felt when I read along (in Silver’s book).
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   (Jan ’21) New Book Review:  “The Trouble With Physics” by Lee Smolin (Jan ’21)   Lee Smolin is a theoretical physicist, and he does not like what String Theory has done to physics. String Theory appears to have a lot of potential, gets a lot of attention and resources, but is that good for the future of physics? Spoiler alert, Dr. Smolin says “no”
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   (Dec ’20) New Book Review:  “The Fabric Of Reality” by David Deutsch (Dec ’20)   The run-of-the-mill scientist might be content to simply publish groundbreaking science in their chosen field, maybe win a Nobel or two.  The truly ambitious scientist attempts to craft an interdisciplinary “Theory of Everything” that explains the entire universe.  And perhaps most impressive of all, the amateur blogger reads one of these books and writes a snarky review.  Read what I think of David Deutsch’s unification of quantum mechanics, epistemology, computation, and evolution!
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Monkey-Gives-Middle-Finger-2   (Sept ’17) New Article:  Secret Communication in Nature, Part II:  ANIMALS  (Sept ’17)   Some might accuse me of rushing to publish this second article in our series on secret communication in nature, a scant 2 years after the first one.  ”How could you have possibly produced such an excellent article in only 24 months??” they’d shout incredulously.  And yet, I did.  No, this blogger will not wait the customary 8 years between posts, for that would be a great disservice to the dozens of you readers out there!  So enjoy, and I’ll see you again in 24 months!
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 weird_science  (July ’17) New Article:  The Weirdest Scientific Papers Ever Published (July ’17)   As part of my tour of the weirdest areas of science to write articles for TimeBlimp, I come across some really strange research papers. While 99% of scientific publications have extremely dry, unappealing titles, the weird 1% make it all worthwhile. Here I’ll collect the best of the best (and incidentally, recycle some material that I had to read anyway into a brand new article. Efficiency!)
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New article:  Secret Communication in Nature, Part I:  PLANTS  (Oct ’15)   You might have heard that plants can communicate with each other, for example to warn each other of predators. That’s just the tip of the iceberg — of how they communicate with each other, communicate with animals, maybe even are capable of a sort of intelligent behavior. Read our article on Secret Communication in Plants, if you’d like to have ethical doubts the next time you eat a salad…
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ctwit_try2 New Article:   A Cellular Automaton   In my Very home?  (April ’15)    For years, I’ve looked for evidence that Cellular Automata are used somewhere, somehow, in the biological world. Finally, there’s solid evidence. There just might be a Cellular Automaton on that houseplant behind you…
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fermi  (Nov ’14) New Article:  Fun With Fermi Problems (November ’14)   Quick! How many people in the world have the same number of hairs on their head as you? How long would all the DNA in your body be, if you stretched it all out end-to-end? How big is a mole of moles? Find out more, in our compilation of our favorite Fermi Problems!
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 Piet_Program_Hello_World(1)(Oct ’14) New Article: Esoteric Programming Languages (October ’14)  Do you find computer programming to be depressingly easy and straightforward? Too many useful commands in your current language? Tired of writing concise source code for simple tasks that never reaches 1,000 pages long? You may want to consider making the switch to an Esoteric Programming Language — working, functional programming languages that are designed with usability, clarity, and efficiency in mind — they don’t do ANY of that stuff.
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 Aaron(July ’14) New Article: Fun With Number Theory (July ’14)   Tired of hearing about the same topics in number theory? Sick to death about the mysteries of prime numbers? Well, have we got what you need — come on by to our new post, Fun With Number Theory. Which mathematical concept is named for Hank Aaron? Want to see a formula that’s correct to 42 decimal places, by coincidence? And why aren’t there more references to Top 40 radio in recreational number theory? Read my new post to find out!
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(Nov ’13) New Book Review:  “The Music of the Primes”, by Marcus du Sautoy    What a cool book!  A highly readable yet mathematically meaty tour of the history of the Riemann Hypothesis, with detours into prime numbers, internet encryption, and quantum mechanics.  And that’s just my review!  The book is even cooler!
   
  (Sept ’13) The Most Awesomely Named Things Ever   Trying to come up with a name for your new invention?  Learn from the best — check out this list of the most amazing badass names ever coined in the realms of science, history, and culture.  What was the “Zanclean Flood”?  What’s a “Hapax Legomenon”?  Who cares, they have awesome names!!!
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(August ’13)
The Strangest Attempts Ever at Communicating With Extraterrestrials   We learned in Paul Davies’ book (reviewed below) why we haven’t heard much from alien intelligence elsewhere in the universe.  But we keep trying — oh, we keep trying.  Aside from the plain-vanilla messages (the Pioneer Plaque, the Arecibo Message), we’ve sent some strange stuff into space.  Embarassing stuff.  Gross stuff.  Read on to hear about my favorites, including one message that constitutes the single strangest topic I’ve written about on this entire site.
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(July ’13)
New Book Review:  “The Eerie Silence” by Paul Davies    With all the countless stars in the universe, and the countless planets orbiting those stars, there must be intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, right?  I mean, the galaxy must be teeming with life, right?   Then why haven’t we heard from them?
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(July ’13) New Book Review:  “Regenesis”, by George Church and Ed Regis        Have you been dying to know how Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves? Well then go read George Church’s new book. Have you been dying to know what I think of “Regenesis: How Synthetic etc etc etc”? Well, read my book review!  You’ll learn about the single most astounding way ever suggested to make ourselves immune from viral infections. You’ll learn about the possibility of bringing a Wooly Mammoth back to life, and where we’ll put it when it wakes up. And you’ll learn about a world-renowned researcher who looks an awful lot like Zach Galifianakis.
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 (July ’13) What’s New!    I finally decided it would be a good idea to have a “what’s new” page.  Which is this page.  That you’re reading now.  This is really meta.  My head is spinning, I need to sit down…
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(July ’13)
The Promise of Infinite Monkeys    The proverbial monkeys typing for eternity will eventually produce the works of Shakespeare, so they say.  Given an infinite supply of something (time, space, monkey poo), astoundingly rare events are inevitable.  Read about the strangest outcomes you can get from infinity…
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  (June ’13) A Whole Crapload of Beer Reviews       In a new feature on timeblimp dot com, our iron-livered correspondent Walt Liquor drinks horrible horrible beers so you don’t have to.  Check out a slew of reviews from throughout the years, now gathered in one place and uploaded to timeblimp!
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 (May ’13)
 Neutrinos – The universe playing hard to get Neutrinos pass right through normal matter without even noticing.  In fact, neutrinos are passing right through you, right now, as you read this.  Trillions of them!  Learn more about these aloof little buggers…
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  (May ’13)  Book Review:  13 Things That Don’t Make Sense, by Michael Brooks.   I’m a sucker for scientific topics way out on the fringe — those cool stories that are neither boringly mainstream nor solely the domain of the tinfoil-hatted. Stories that have an equal shot of becoming the next Stem Cell Research (i.e. so gigantic that I’ll soon be sick of them), or the next Martian microbes (i.e. fizzles out). I love to write about ‘em myself here on timeblimp.com, and I love to read ‘em in book like this one.
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(May ’13) The Quantum Limits of Human Senses    If you haven’t clicked immediately away from this site back over to ESPN, then you’ve probably heard of quantum mechanics.  And you’ve probably concluded, perhaps with some sadness, that you’ll never get to really see the weirdness of quantum mechanics with your own eyes.  Quantum physics is limited to the atomic realm, right?  WRONG!
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  (April ’13)

The Shadow Biosphere.   Could life have appeared more than once on Earth?  Let’s find out!  Or rather, talk about how hard it is to find out!
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