Official "Science News" Thread

[kladner]

Many thanks for the Aerhart article. I was fortunate that I had one accessible NYT story left. I now have a Word .docx file which I present here. I hope the NYT isn't watching.

[jwaltos]

The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us about Success

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Dutton

The book noted contains some stories that should resonate with anyone who has worked in a high stress environment where the margin of error is zero in certain "pass/fail" situations..military, espionage, politics/business, medicine and gambling to name a few. I gave my copy away after reading it.

Among the many A. Earhart documentaries there is a good recent one on the "DTOUR" network by a latter day Indiana Jones (Josh Gates).

[ewmayer]

o The quest to unlock the secrets of the baby Universe | Nature: Radioastronomers look to hydrogen for insights into the Universe’s first billion years.

o Scientists detect a black hole swallowing a neutron star | Space | EarthSky -- I like the main-figure hidden-caption (the one that appears in place of the image when one disables image rendering), "Black hole swallows neutron star, with all appropriate flashy colors and swirly things."

[kladner]

From the first link above:

Stretched, or redshifted, by the Universe’s expansion, those 21-cm photons would today have wavelengths ranging roughly between 1.5 and 20 metres — corresponding to 15–200 megahertz (MHz).

The relationship between frequency and wavelength is reversed in this statement. The lower frequency corresponds to the longer wavelength, and vice versa.

[retina]

Originally Posted by kladner

From the first link above:

The relationship between frequency and wavelength is reversed in this statement. The lower frequency corresponds to the longer wavelength, and vice versa.

How about:

Stretched, or redshifted, by the Universe’s expansion, those 21-cm photons would today have wavelengths ranging roughly between 1.5 and 20 metres — corresponding to 15–200 megahertz (MHz) antirespectively.

Fixed that for you.

[kladner]

Thank you. I had not thought of that verbal fix. I would have switched one or the other sets of numbers.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by kladner

From the first link above:


The relationship between frequency and wavelength is reversed in this statement. The lower frequency corresponds to the longer wavelength, and vice versa.

IMO the sentence you quoted is correct as given. Each measurement is given as a range of values and for any value within the range given for, say, wavelength, the corresponding frequency lies within the range given for frequency and vice versa. The distinction I am trying to make here is between a range of values and a value with a range.

However, retina's addition may aid the understanding of those who do not remember, or never learned, their physics.

Pedants “Я” Us

[kladner]

Originally Posted by xilman

IMO the sentence you quoted is correct as given. Each measurement is given as a range of values and for any value within the range given for, say, wavelength, the corresponding frequency lies within the range given for frequency and vice versa. The distinction I am trying to make here is between a range of values and a value with a range.

However, retina's addition may aid the understanding of those who do not remember, or never learned, their physics.

Pedants “Я” Us

It still seems rather sloppy, at least.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Numerical ranges are usually given smallest-to-largest. The quoted sentence thus conforms to standard practice.

An amusing oddity is that it just happens that the sig figs of the wavelengths in meters (1.5 and 2) multiply to 3, and the speed of light is (very nearly) 3 x 10⁸ m/sec. It is for this reason that the sig figs of the frequencies are also 1.5 and 2.

[kladner]

OK, OK. I bow to the consensus.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by kladner

OK, OK. I bow to the consensus.

Oh, knock it off! If it's one thing I can't stand, it's people groveling ... Every time we try to have a scientific discussion in front of someone it's "sorry this" and "forgive me that" and "I'm not worthy"... It's just like those miserable psalms, they're so depressing.