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12 September 2009
Disney's "Mars and Beyond"
I just stumbled across this awesome Disney cartoon from 1957 over at the Tor.com blog. It’s worth watching just for the various bizarre aliens, but is also surprisingly informative about the history of astronomy, the origin of earth and life, and our fascination with life on Mars. Also note how they call galaxies “island universes”.
10 July 2009
Solar System Creator
As I mentioned last month, on top of research and grad school duties, I’m in the process of planning out a sci-fi novel. It began with the month-long outlining challenge “Midsommer Madness” over at the Liberty Hall writing site, and I am continuing with it in my spare time. I am trying to make my novel grounded in reality whenever possible. It is set in a known star system, 55 …
1 June 2009
How to get Mars funding
On a related note, my fellowship, which involves vaporizing rocks with a high-powered laser, was renewed last month. (Click for the full comic)
9 May 2009
Review: Star Trek
Last night, I and my thirty closest friends (much of the Cornell astronomy department) visited the movie theater to watch the new Star Trek movie. The overall verdict: it was good! But of course, as huge nerds and astronomers, after the movie we spent a good twenty minutes standing in the halls of the theater blocking traffic and vigorously discussing all aspects of the movie. In general I liked it …
6 May 2009
"Alien Skull" on Mars
Are you kidding?! Guys. That’s a rock. A chunk of vesicular basalt to be specific. As far as pareidolia goes, it’s not even very good! I had to stare for a while before I saw a face. The human brain loves to see familiar shapes in everything, so it’s pretty easy to find examples of rocks on Mars that look like anything you want. Here, take a look at this …
5 May 2009
Comic: Depressing Statistics
Today’s Daisy Owl comic is about the cost of a human mission to Mars. Click for the whole comic:
4 May 2009
We live in the future
I often say (or at least think to myself) that we live in the future. Especially when I’m traveling. It’s constantly amazing to me that I can get anywhere in the world in less than a day. I can make a routine trip out to California for a conference, when 150 years ago that would be the journey of a lifetime, and would involve diseases and caulking wagons to cross …
9 April 2009
I have joined the dark side
Guess what? I finally joined twitter! I am marschronicler! Do you want to know about the minutiae of my life? My most (and least) profound thoughts? What I had for breakfast? Well, then you are in luck, my friends!
8 April 2009
How to Talk Like a Physicist
Unfortunately, I missed Talk Like a Physicist Day this year (March 14), but I wanted to share this site anyway. It covers the basics of talking like a physicist, such as: Ground State: You’re not being lazy, you are in your ground state. and: First-order approximation : That is only a first-order approximation to a good cup of coffee… “The living room is clean. Well…at least to a first order …
