dolce far niente: science for the day

Showing posts with label science for the day. Show all posts

I just thought you'd like to know that this

is a large blue butterfly

(it would be larger, but the new netbookthingy won't let me crop pictures) (there's nothing I'd want to do to make it bluer. . . I mean - who am I to mess with nature?)

blue pink

y'all know by now I have one of those things that people have (you know those things that people have?) about sky blue pink

well, I also have one of those things that people have (you do know what I'm talking about, don't you?) (cos it won't make much sense if you don't!) (what's your "thing"?) about things that should be blue, but are in fact pink. . .

. . .like pink bluebells. . . and pink forget-me-nots

(and I was going to write about this before
Dave kindly shared his forget-me-nots with us today!)

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and just recently I've also been noticing the variation in shades of lilac:

(sadly I didn't take any of those photos - I wish I had been able to)

and the lilac reminded me about hydrangeas (which I find a little like camelias) (as in, I don't know what all the fuss is about) which I always thought had blue flowers in acidic soil and pink or purple in alkaline soil*. . . so how does one account for the following:

anyhoo

there we go!

(*it's a little like litmus paper, in that respect, altho neutral litmus in solution turns red in acidic conditions and blue under alkaline, so in fact totally the opposite) (did you know that litmus is a water-soluble mixture of different dyes extracted from lichens? you do now)

five minutes of your time please, you'll need a

pen and paper at the ready. . . as you scroll down, you'll see some images I'd like you to look at each for a moment or two, look at every one in turn, until you get to the bottom:
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4.5.

6.7.

10.

11.

now, please, go back to the top and make a note of the word/s that occured to you when you looked at each individual picture. . .
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next, please type the words into the comments without being influenced by anyone else's comment*, apart from mine!!!!!!!
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(*that is assuming anyone apart from you, dear reader, had five minutes of your precious time to spare and share with moi!)
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(-:

things I don't "do"

here at any rate

I, dear reader, you may recall, have frequently commented that I don't "do" sex/religion/politics in this particular chink of cyber space (and actually, I'm not doing much of those anywhere else at the moment, which is a bit besides the point, but/so if I did write something on any of those topics it wouldn't be very interesting) (altho I'll make a very very small exception to say that, if he hadn't already, Mr G Brown has now either won or lost himself the election by calling an ordinary member of the British populace "bigoted" - I mean, she may or may not be, but whatever one thinks of her, or him for that matter, he really shouldn't have still been miked up when he made that comment) (see, I've said too much already - YIKES!!) (altho I fancy voting for him again now, just because he's shown he's actually not an automaton) (see, I'm just diggin' myself into a bigger and bigger hole. . . but Vicus will have given up reading this afer the first mention of sex, so I'm probably ok)

BUT ANYHOW you don't really need to know my views/opinions on sex, religion, politics, etc, etc, yadda yadda now do you? I've always thought of my encounters with things "not of this world" to be classed closely enough to "religion", not to have mentioned them - but of late Christopher has been pulling me out of that closet. . .

Christopher was telling a tale over at Camp Lydian that is very similar to a tale my mother once told me, about my great-great grandmother. . .

. . .not the great grandmother whose 95th birthday party I went to when I was about seven, which I remember mainly because of the 95 birthday candles on the cake - you know, those traditional little white two-three inch size ones? it's not so much the candles I remember, more the fact that the person (there was only one person) lighting them (silly, wasn't it - having only one person to light 95 candles) started on one side of the cake and by the time he'd worked his way (yes, it had to be a man, didn't it? if it had been a woman, she'd have handed some matches to a few other people, wouldn't she!) over to the ones of the other side, the first lot had burnt down to the bottom and melted the plastic holders all over the icing (I felt very badly for that - I like the icing on the cake). . .

. . .but her mother, who'd lived in the same house. . .

. . .anyhoo a few years later, the great grandmother had died (think she reached 97, but there wasn't another big cake as far as I know) and the house was sold on. . .

. . .and a few years after that sold on again. . .

. . .and shortly after that a neighbour (who had lived locally for quite a while) was asked by the new occupants who the "little old lady" who they frequently saw standing waiting at the bottom of the front garden path was. . . I won't go into the details, of which there were many which were quite accurate, but basically she was my long-time deceased great-great grandmother. . .

. . .you never really believe that type of story unless it has happened to you or unless you already really do believe in some kind of "not of this world" totally non-scienticky sort of stuff, so I'll say no more - other than to add that I have had two brief personal encounters with dead "people" (and I don't mean in a mortuary) (and way before I ever suffered from depression, before I ever took medication and before I had the brain altering ECT; so my encounters cannot be put down to any kind of madness of that sort)

you'll be pleased to know that I've never been abducted by aliens

not in this life-time anyways

and on the urban nature table today

are you sitting comfortably children? today we have some blossom! alas not a sprig from a tree. . . but a growing pile, swept by the soft winds of April into the corners of gutters, of tiny dried up petals

despite this, the petals are very pretty, so as to distinguish themselves from and not to be confused with the growing piles of ash. . .

(possibly volcanic, but I'm not an expert)

and adding some colour, we have a few screwed up and discarded parking tickets

(not mine, children, you'll be pleased to know -
seeing as I don't have a car and thus am not subject to ticketing)

but of most interest today, and I'd like your help with this if any of you are keen oologists: an egg! well, not quite an egg, as I'll explain...

but first I'd like your help please, in identifying the egg. . . yes, Kenneth, I know you are a twitterer, but that's not quite the same thing is it? now - what I'd like to know is, does anyone have their copy of The Observer's Book of Bird Eggs in their desk? for that would be of great help

you see, I have looked and looked thru all the encyclopedias in the library, but I cannot find a picture of the egg I am trying to identity. . . it is quite small, about an inch long, no, David, I do not know what that is in the new fandangled metric system, but I suppose it would be very helpful if you could tell us, and the shell is pure white - a kind of blue-white, without actually being blue, and there are no spots or other kinds of identifying marks on the egg

and the reason I only have the shell, as opposed to the whole egg, is because last night one of the cats must have brought it into the house, yes, Melanie, that does mean that the cat found the egg in a nest in a tree of one of the gardens up the street and carried it carefully in its mouth all the way back - including jumping up to the roof of my kitchen and then down into the courtyard and in thru the catflap, I know, cats are pretty clever aren't they, and then left it as a gift for me on the rug in the breakfast room. . .

. . .where, unfortunately, one of my children stepped on it, I know Jospeh, it's not what you expect to find on the rug in the breakfast room, is it, and no, Christopher, I suppose she wasn't looking where she was going as she didn't really need to because usually there aren't eggs left on the floor, are they, and yes her brothers did laugh when she squealed about having trodden on an egg and yes I did say that she couldn't have trodden on an egg because as far as I was concerned there weren't any eggs in the house. . .

yes Melanie, it is storytime now - and I have the perfect tale for today. . . are you sitting comfortably? then I'll begin

lucky for some

so I was thinking this really strange set of thoughts

but rather than trouble you with the full details, I'll just take you thru them very briefly with the help of a few visual aids
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paying attention? good

obviously I started off with the thought that today is St Patrick's Day - if you knew the week I'd had, you'd be amazed I even realised that it was the 17th and you'd forgive me the fact I'm in the wrong month; from the emerald isle, it was but a hop and a skip to Stonehenge

and thence swiftly on, to planetary alignment (here craftily illustrated by some marbles, as planets aren't that happy to line up for a photoshoot)

then I started thinking about time and my mind naturally wandered to the insides of a pocket watch

an attractive inside. . .
ah! that was better. . . then back to those planets again (you know, how a wandering mind goes back and forth between topics and then back again to one you've already thunk about)

and I was trying to remember the name of those planetary alignment machine things, when what I did rememb was that the teens were talking about one today and I'd thought they said ossary - but they actually said orrery

so there we have it - clovers to cosmic coincidence without my having bored you comatose with my actual thoughts, plus you've learnt that a planetary alignment mechanismy thing is an orrery (not to be confused with an eyrie which is the word for an eagle nest) - or did you already know. . .
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you did? CLEVER YOU!

if the various teens had pointed out that my education was somewhat lacking, I'd have sent them this. . .

but they didn't (they know which side their bread is buttered) (and who butters it for them) so I'm saving it until the need arises

literally figurative

I've been feeling a little down of late

but I've had a decent share of highs in my life, so I figure it all balances out in the end

on one hand I can accept where I am in my life, on the other hand I still have hopes of other kinds of contentment and - perhaps - happinesses

(what if we had more than one hand, I've often thought. . . we'd say "on the other other hand this, and on the other other other hand that")

I'm getting very behind in all sorts of chores and task, but I have something to look forward to - I've booked my holiday this summer

we use so much of the concrete to describe the abstract, don't we? it's not surprising really, is it - we're physical beings and live (mainly) in a physical world; I was reading, in my favourite weekly read, New Scientist, a while ago, about how if scientists are to successfully develop artificial intelligence in a computer based thingy they will have to put the AI thingy into some form of humanoid. . .

and it does make one wonder about the Babel Fish I mean if aliens are life forms based on anything other than something that developed from a star fish, how would we understand them and their concepts even if we could translate what they were saying to us? I know how cross it makes me - perhaps that's a little strong, but I do get a tad irritated - if I watch a French film with subtitles and the translations aren't what the French part of my brain understands the words/meanings to be. . .

anyhow, so in this article some researcher had tracked the eye movement patterns of left- and right-handed Western (as opposed to Eastern) people's eyes, when looking at how we visualise quantities

so, in a random and totally unscientific way, I wonder if you can tell me where your eyes/hand movements go if you visualise these phrases "a few", "one or two", "lots", "none", "loads", "several" - not now, because you'll be thinking about it - but during the next few days, if you are in coversation with someone, say. . . and if you're the kind of person who gesticulates as they talk and your hands are free at the time, and if you realise you're doing it - just think of a simple grid of two-by-two, with just four squares (so work out if your eyes/hands are going "top right, top left, bottom right, bottom left") (or even, just from left to right or up/down. . . if that makes it simpler)

can you try it for me
and report back?
ta!

are you in the dark? if so, like my good self

you've probably wondered what else is "out there"
you know, in those idle moments when you are watching the pot and waiting for it to boil. . . last night I saw a programme on the televisual box which explained many questions that I frequently ponder about (especially in between Vicus' pieces on the LHC); basically the story goes like this:
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a while ago there was a big bang

and now things aren't turning out quite as some scientificky people predicted so some other scientificky people have filled the gap with stuff called "dark matter", dark energy" and "dark flow"

despite once in my life being on first name terms with the lovely Patrick Moore, having a telescope in the family thru which I've seen some of the wonders of our solar system, achieving A grades in 'O'-level maths and chemistry, I never studied astronomy or physics. . . but for the slightly more educated amongst you, I'm fairly sure that the following equations will help explain things:

(and if that's not clear the following note may help:
"when k = 0, this can be extended to k ≠ 0,
where r is one of the radial coordinates,
but this is rare")
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(did that shed some light on the matter!
or, like me, are you still in the dark?)
..

anyhoo, what they've decided (and are now trying to prove) is that inbetween everything we can see and detect is this dark stuff which we can't see or detect and probably won't be able to - but it has to be there, because if it's not then everything we've known and thought that we understood until now is wrong

so, given that there's supposed to be a huge amount of this dark stuff out there, I started to ponder over it a little:
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I have recently purchased a bar of lovely smelling soap - my little bathroom is now filled with its scent - there were no smells in my bathroom before (you'll be pleased to know) but what I wondered was what was in the gaps before, where there was no fragrance - or, by bringing the soap into this space has something else been forced out? or is the scent mingling inbetween and amongst what was already there (but undetectable). . . now, having seen yesterday's programme I know that my bathroom is full of all sorts of other undetectable things and so perhaps I don't have to think about the soap smell any longer
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extrapolate that, and you don't quite get to dark stuff, but we're on the right lines (or in the right space, anyhow)
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and then I started thinking about the dark side in general, and looked into it (metaphorically, literally and figuratively speaking) (well, writing) and look what I found. . .
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all the marbles people have lost over the years! see if you can spot yours. . .

are they in here?