via 3 Quarks Daily: Tania Lombrozo in Edge
Sometimes you think you understand something, and when you try to explain it to somebody else, you realize that maybe you gained some new insight that you didn’t have before. Maybe you realize you didn’t understand it as well as you thought you did. What I think is interesting about this process is that it’s a process of learning by thinking. When you’re explaining to yourself or to somebody else without them providing feedback, insofar as you gain new insight or understanding, it isn’t driven by that new information that they’ve provided. In some way, you’ve rearranged what was already in your head in order to get new insight. The process of trying to explain to yourself is a lot like a thought experiment in science. For the most part, the way that science progresses is by going out, conducting experiments, getting new empirical data, and so on. But occasionally in the history of science, there’ve been these important episodes – Galileo, Einstein, and so on – where somebody will get some genuinely new insight from engaging in a thought experiment.
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via Big Think by Robby Berman
Artist’s conception of WASP-12b and its sun (NASA, ESA, and G. BACON)
You may recall when we told you about an exceptionally light-absorbing coating called “Vantablack” about a year ago. The stuff is so weirdly black — it absorbs 99.965% of the light that hits it — your senses don’t know what to do with it. Now NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has discovered an exoplanet that’s nearly as dark 1.400 light years away in the constellation Auriga. Soaking up 94% of visible light it encounters, it’s called “WASP-12b,” and it’s huge: Twice the size of our solar system’s Jupiter. Lead researcher Taylor Bell of McGill University and the Institute for Research on Exoplanets in Montreal says, “The measured albedo of WASP-12b is 0.064 at most. This is an extremely low value, making the planet darker than fresh asphalt!” (Albedo is a measure of reflectance.) It’s a reminder of how much we have yet to learn, even here in our own stellar neighborhood.
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via the New Statesman by Lyndall Gordon
“How Pleasant to Know Mr Lear!” is a comical self-portrait by Edward Lear, the Victorian poet of nonsense. This Mr Lear “has written such volumes of stuff!” His nose is “remarkably big”, his body “perfectly spherical” and his face, ineffectively hidden by an immense, bushy beard, “more or less hideous”.
Born in 1812, Lear lived much of his life abroad and eventually built himself a house above the sea in San Remo, north-western Italy. By 1879, when he wrote this poem, he had become a “crazy old Englishman”, who once could sing but now was “one of the dumms”. Lear relays this comedown with mild tolerance. A self-portrait by his imitator T S Eliot is harsher. In “How Unpleasant to Meet Mr Eliot!”, the author’s mouth is prim and his grimness and precision are forbidding. Both poets appear to toss off jingles, yet invite us to pick up a signal: beckoning through thickets of words towards what they secrete.
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via Interesting Literature
The greatest fishy poems
Fish don’t necessarily lend themselves to poetic possibilities, but there have been some classic poems written about fishing and fish nevertheless. Ranging from religious instructional verse to religious satire, to ecological poems and poems about the self, the following ten poems are among the greatest fish poems in the English language.
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via 3 Quarks Daily: Colin Dayan in Avidly
I awakened one morning with the name “Dorothy Dandridge” floating, it seemed, above me.
I knew the name but had no idea why. My mother, the woman of glamour who reserved a sneer only for me, admired Rita Hayworth, Ava Gardner, and later, when I was older, Lena Horne and Nancy Wilson. I do not recall her ever mentioning or even listening to Dorothy Dandridge. So the weekend after the name sounded out over my head that early morning, I forgot about the Nashville heat and read “Everything and Nothing,” her purported autobiography, and Donald Bogle’s biography. The latter still sits on my desk with a photo of the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
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via Flavorwire by Sarah Seltzer
As distance continues to accumulate between the present moment and the final installment of the Harry Potter books, one character has risen above the rest taken on a whole new afterlife. You’d think it would be Snape, the series’ most morally complex and mysterious character, but it’s not. Instead, Hermione Granger, born on September 19, who begins her journey as a brainy, hand-in-the-air teacher’s pet and ends it as an unshakeable heroine and the smartest wizard of her generation, has become a pop culture icon for a generation that was raised on Harry Potter and embraces feminism.
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via Big Thin blog by Philip Perry
The Laetoli footprints of Tanzania. By: Wolfgang Sauber via Wikimedia Commons.
According to the established timeline, hominids didn’t leave Africa until 1.75 million years ago. Homo ergaster ("working man") was thought to be the first to make it to Southern Eurasia. It used primitive stone tools, which is where it got its name. Some scientists believe this is actually a subspecies of Homo erectus (“upright man”) who lived about 1.89 million to 143,000 years ago. A new discovery in Greece however is challenging our current understanding and may sow controversy within the paleontological community.
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via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz
In Montreal, Quebec, Gérald Collard and the Atelier Neon Family create intricate works of neon. Here's how they make that magical glow. (via Uncrate)
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via OUP Blog by the Oxford Handbooks marketing team
“Water, Drop, Liquid” by qimono. Public Domain via Pixabay.
From Copernicus to Einstein, the field of Physics has changed drastically over time. With each new theory, further hypotheses appear that challenge conventional wisdom. Today, although topics such as the Big Bang Theory and General Relativity are well-established, there are still some debates that keep physicists up at night. What are your thoughts on the five of the biggest current debates in Physics?
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via The Observer by Dalya Alberge
Dig volunteer Sarah Baker with one of the rare cavalry swords. Photograph: Sonya Galloway
Archaeologists are likening the discovery to winning the lottery. A Roman cavalry barracks has been unearthed near Hadrian’s Wall, complete with extraordinary military and personal possessions left behind by soldiers and their families almost 2,000 years ago. A treasure trove of thousands of artefacts dating from the early second century has been excavated over the past fortnight [in September 2017].
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