Category Archives: Science

IT MATTERS WHO DOES THE EXPERIMENT.

IT MATTERS WHO DOES THE EXPERIMENT. I posted here about a description of how to conduct a good experiment by Richard Feynman: ” He singled out for praise an experiment by a man named Young in 1937. Young was trying … Continue reading

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THE BRITISH POMPEII.

THE BRITISH POMPEII. Another archaeological discovery. (And to think that there was a time when I believed that pretty much everything from the distant past had been found). This article on the BBC site (July 14) describes what is being … Continue reading

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THE BURIAL MOUNDS AT STONEHENGE.

THE BURIAL MOUNDS AT STONEHENGE. In his article, Lidz points out that: “At Stonehenge, the most comprehensive underground analysis yet undertaken of the Neolithic site found evidence of 17 previously unknown wooden or stone shrines and dozens of massive prehistoric … Continue reading

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ARCHAEOLOGY WITHOUT DIGGING.

ARCHAEOLOGY WITHOUT DIGGING. This article by Franz Lidz in the July/August Smithsonian describes the archaeological finds near Carnuntum in Austria, a military camp established by Tiberius in A.D. 6. Lidz highlights the use of new archaeological tools, including drone overflights … Continue reading

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CIPRO—MILLIONS OF PRESCRIPTIONS, SPARSE DATA.

CIPRO—MILLIONS OF PRESCRIPTIONS, SPARSE DATA. Cipro has been widely used for a long time. One would think that there would be a lot of data about what happens after a patient takes Cipro. The numbers are missing because the data … Continue reading

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DRUG WARNINGS SHOULD INCLUDE NUMBERS IN ADDITION TO VAGUE WORDS—CIPRO.

DRUG WARNINGS SHOULD INCLUDE NUMBERS IN ADDITION TO VAGUE WORDS—CIPRO. I have posted a number of times about how probabilities expressed in numbers should be preferred to vague words in weather forecasts (here), in rating of bonds by rating agencies … Continue reading

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WHAT WE KNOW WITH CERTAINTY ABOUT THE FIRST SECOND AFTER THE “BIG BANG”.

WHAT WE KNOW WITH CERTAINTY ABOUT THE FIRST SECOND AFTER THE “BIG BANG”. What do we know about the Big Bang? In sum, Pomeroy quotes Caltech astrophysicist Sean Caroll: “We don’t have any idea what happened at the purported moment … Continue reading

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THE BIG BANG—“THE TIME AT WHICH WE DON’T KNOW WHAT THE UNIVERSE WAS DOING”.

THE BIG BANG—“THE TIME AT WHICH WE DON’T KNOW WHAT THE UNIVERSE WAS DOING”. My first post on this blog was about the Big Bang. In it, I marveled about the evidence we had for the Big Bang. In this … Continue reading

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THE “ENIAC GIRLS”.

THE “ENIAC GIRLS”. This article by Brenda Frank on the Stanford Gender News site tells how all of the software that made the “ENIAC” machine work was created by six women who were known by contemporaries as the “ENIAC Girls”. … Continue reading

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THE WOMEN OF BLETCHLEY PARK.

THE WOMEN OF BLETCHLEY PARK. I learned from the Economist obituary that two thirds of the workers at Bletchley Park were women—even though the movies I have seen about code breaking never seem to have more than one woman in … Continue reading

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