Description
"Galileo's Pendulum" is a blog covering physics, astronomy, math, and related topics - all for a non-specialist audience. I am especially interested in showing how science actually works, and how the various conceptual pieces fit together to make the theoretical framework that provides the best description of the natural world.
Galileo's Pendulum's Latest Posts
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Felicia, Felicia, oh have you met Felicia? Felicia the Fermilab Ferret! (sung to the tune of Lydia the Tattooed Lady) As part of the process of writing my book Back Roads, Dark Skies, I’ve probably gathered five times more material than I actually need, so some really interesting stuff won’t end up in the final […]
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How do we know the most famous equation in physics — E = mc2 — is actually correct? The answer, of course, involves experiments. It doesn’t matter how brilliant Einstein (or anyone) is, no theory is good if it doesn’t hold up under experimental tests. The relation between mass and rest energy is no different. […]
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My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air, Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same, I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, Hoping to cease not till death. – Walt Whitman, Song of Myself I am not a “natural” scientist. […]
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When someone thinks sexy science, a statistical method doesn’t usually come to mind. However, Nate Silver — a baseball statistician who made a name for himself by analyzing political polls for more than four years — made people who usually shun such topics aware of a technique known as Bayesian inference. Silver used Bayesian methods […]
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It never fails: every time someone publishes new research or even mentions the planet Uranus, many people feel inclined to make jokes. The same jokes. Yet, those same people will also act like nobody has ever seen the “anus” part of the planet’s name before. Like a political writer seeing the same jokes about Anthony […]
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