Category Archives: Science
One of the Substack blogs I follow, A Piece of the Pi by Richard Green, is almost ideal from my point of view because it features articles that interest me but only — at most — a few a month (so I needn’t strain to keep up).
Which matters because keeping up with dozens of science and math blogs, video channels, and occasional papers takes considerable time away from various hobby projects. But sometimes (and this is the third time Mr. Green has done this) something captures my imagination and sends me off on a tangent.
The results often seem worth sharing, and this is no exception. The delight here is that such a simple idea results in a variety of interesting patterns.
Continue reading
4 Comments | tags: computer generated images, Mary Everest Boole, Python | posted in Computers, Math
This post begins with a bit of what I see as good news. We’re exactly one month away from Winter Solstice — December 21st at 15:03 UTC. That’s 9:03 AM USA Central Time, and I set posts to publish at 9:14 AM, so by the time you read this, it’s just under a month away.
Cue regular Solstice-Equinox reminder that the day-length changes very slowly at the Solstices and very rapidly at the Equinoxes [cue regular link: Solar Derivative].
Until then, here’s another edition of Friday Notes.
Continue reading
5 Comments | tags: AI, Bentley, eagle, equinox, Python, snow, Solstice, squirrel, weather | posted in Computers, Friday Notes, Math
For two weeks I’ve indulged in intense 12+ hour days on a self-education project in Python and its Tk module. I plan to write more about that later this week (that’s the plan, anyway).
Intense coding and learning take me deep into a Zen-like mindset that’s hard to emerge from. I have a minor self-commitment to publish at least five posts a month but have yet to publish anything this month.
As I struggle to regain the English language, I thought sharing another set of Mandelbrot images offered an easy reentry. The previous post had images from 2019 and 2020. Here are the last of those (and some from 2025).
Continue reading
7 Comments | tags: Mandelbrot fractal, Mandelbrot Monday, Ultra Fractal | posted in Math
In the Friday Notes from last August, I wrote about needing to buy a new laptop. In the September edition of same, I wrote about installing Ultra Fractal 6 on that laptop and shared a few Mandelbrot images I’d made.
I’ve been sharing two or three in Substack Notes every week for “Fractal Friday”, but Notes is a fast-running river in which things vanish downstream almost instantly.
So, I thought I’d start sharing some here on Mandelbrot Mondays, though I don’t plan to make it a regular thing. I am thinking about a series of posts exploring the Mandelbrot, though.
Continue reading
6 Comments | tags: Mandelbrot fractal, Mandelbrot Monday, Ultra Fractal | posted in Math
Fall — my favorite season ‘cept for the fading of the light — has fallen here in Minnesota, and our thoughts are turning towards the question of what kind of winter it will be: easy or miserable.
My winter is coming triple mile markers loom, the first dead ahead: Will it snow by Halloween? Will it snow by Thanksgiving? Will it snow by Christmas? Answers to all three vary depending on the whims of Mother Nature and her unexpected offspring, Climate Change.
In the meantime, here we are again for another edition of Friday Notes.
Continue reading
17 Comments | tags: brown sugar, charts, Future Shock, math fun, Quadratic Equation, smoke alarm, stillness, weather | posted in Friday Notes, Math
This Science Notes series (a subset of the Friday Notes series) gives me a chance to record bits of science articles that catch my eye and seem worth sharing. I’ve been doing this since my library app provided access to a huge number of online magazines.
Nearly all of which don’t interest me — in some cases, seriously don’t interest me. Bridal and Fan magazines are an obvious example, but there are myriad magazines devoted to interests that don’t interest me at all.
But I do like the ones devoted to science, and some articles fit some receptor in my mind enough to generate a note.
Continue reading
4 Comments | tags: gravity, human consciousness, infinity, lucid dreaming, real numbers, Science Notes | posted in Friday Notes, Science
It’s been a while since my last Sidebands post. That’s partly because I’ve been working on a project that I’m sure will become a multi-post series and thought it would be nice to start with #81. But I’m not done (or actually started on the writing) yet, and this one has also been lurking for a while.
Essentially, I needed to figure out how to join a cone to a sphere in a seamless way (as in the picture here). This requires the sides of the cone meet the sphere at a tangent point.
It’s yet another case of actually needing the trigonometry I learned in school.
Continue reading
3 Comments | tags: cones, POV-Ray, trigonometry | posted in Math, Sideband
My usual breakfast — literally breaking the short fast that begins for me before midnight — isn’t until at least noon to ensure a minimum of 12 hours without food. If I get busy doing something in the morning, I might not break-fast until much later. “Lunch” therefore takes place around 4:00 or 5:00 PM, and “dinner” somewhere around 9:00 PM. I try to not eat after 10:00 PM, but definitely not after midnight.
Which isn’t particularly relevant here, but what does apply is that I typically read while I eat my two slices of breakfast toast. What I usually read is the latest issue of New Scientist or, more recently, Popular Mechanics (which is where Popular Science went when it died).
All of which is to say, here’s another issue of Science Notes.
Continue reading
Leave a comment | tags: Betelgeuse, Lee Smolin, New Scientist magazine, Popular Mechanics magazine, Roger Penrose, Sabine Hossenfelder, Science Notes, social media | posted in Friday Notes, Science
I’ve written here before about the Libby app I use to access the local library’s ebook catalog. Over the years, I’ve read hundreds of library books without ever having to actually visit the library. (Which is a pity in some ways. I’ve always loved libraries and even was a student librarian in high school. And there is value in being able to wander and browse.)
A while back the Libby app seriously expanded access to periodicals, so I’ve been reading the British magazine, New Scientist.
Which has turned out to be yet another reason to take notes…
Continue reading
2 Comments | tags: assembly theory, dark forest, Earth, Fermi Paradox, Libby, New Scientist magazine, Science Notes, solar system, three-body problem | posted in Friday Notes, Science
Back on Tau Day (which is also my retirement anniversary), I posted about a scene in the superhero comic Invincible that involves a baseball orbiting the Earth at a very close distance (roughly airplane height). Regardless of superhero strengths, I found the scene impossible on multiple counts.
At the time, I could only calculate the velocity of the ball given the circumference of the Earth and some guesses about the length of the presumed orbit. Suffice to say the answers sufficiently demonstrated the impossibility.
Here, I’ll use orbital mechanics for some hard data on putative baseball orbits.
Continue reading
3 Comments | tags: Invincible, orbital mechanics, planets, Python | posted in Science
Logos con carne 