Been a rough couple of weeks for me personally, and I haven’t had the time or the energy to write some solid science posts. In the meantime, please take a look at the latest weird science facts posted on twitter.
Let’s see what the last two weeks of weird science facts on twitter have revealed! Click below the fold to learn more about wombat poo than you probably ever thought you would want to know.
Henry Kuttner (1915-1958) may be referred to as “one of the most important science fiction authors you’ve never heard of.” He was incredibly prolific and versatile, writing countless short stories of science fiction, fantasy, horror, thriller, and adventure, as well as over a dozen novels. Many of his works have been adapted into movies and episodes of television shows, including The Twilight Zone. One of my favorite science fiction stories of all time, “Private Eye,” was written by “Lewis Padgett,” the pen-name of Henry Kuttner and his equally talented writing wife, C.L. Moore. I’ve blogged about a number of his novels before — The Time Axis, Destination Infinity, The Well of the Worlds — and I’m always eager to read more of his bibliography, though it isn’t always easy to find it.
I recently came across a reprint of Kuttner’s novel Valley of the Flame (1946), and jumped at the chance to read it. The cover below is that of the first book edition, from 1964.
The story is a somewhat standard “lost world” adventure story, with a few twists. One of those can be seen on the cover of the book: the lost world, the titular Valley of the Flame, is inhabited by intelligent, hyper-evolved cat people!
Time for another recap of weird science facts from Twitter! Click below the fold to see how the system pictured below provided entertainment for Victorian folks.
The first in a (hopefully) series of posts inspired by topics covered in my upcoming textbook on singular optics.
Crewed balloon rides have a surprisingly large role in the history of science. The first untethered balloon flight was performed in Paris on November 21, 1783, and the achievement of human flight opened up new possibilities for scientific measurement and, indeed, exploration.
The first untethered balloon flight, November 21, 1783.
Primarily, ballooning offered a novel opportunity to study the chemical properties of the upper atmosphere and the wind currents at high altitudes, and it filled this role for over a century. Unfortunately, many early flights were deadly: I’ve blogged before about the fateful 1875 flight of Gaston Tissandier, Joseph Croce-Spinelli and Théodore Sivel, in which 2 of the 3 balloonists succumbed to oxygen deprivation.
Other discoveries awaited the adventurous at high altitudes. Half of the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics went to Victor Francis Hess for the discovery of extraterrestrial radiation (cosmic rays) from a balloon in 1913 (though hints of cosmic rays appeared even earlier).
In the 21st century, one wouldn’t think that there would be any physics left to be observed by balloon. Recently, however, I came across a 2002 paper¹ by scientists from Hungary and Switzerland, titled “First observation of the fourth neutral polarization point in the atmosphere.” In this paper, the researchers describe how they used measurements from a hot air balloon to verify a prediction of optical science that had remained untested for over 150 years!
A modern hot air balloon, from Wikipedia, because it seems like I should have one in this post. Photo by Kropsoq.
The discovery is not, admittedly, Earth-shattering, so to speak, but it is a fascinating epilogue to an extended period of the history of physics and a testament to the ingenuity of scientists!
While I’m working on some new physics blog posts, here’s a couple of more skydiving videos that I took with a GoPro!
After about six months off, I’ve finally gotten back into the air… into freefall, that is! I haven’t been jumping for a while thanks to a combination of reasons, probably in large part to wanting to work on my singular optics textbook on the weekend. Now the book draft is done, so I’m getting back into having fun!
This weekend, I also tested out my new full-face helmet for skydiving, complete with a camera mount for a GoPro. I did two jumps, and below is the full video of those two jumps. Since these are the first videos I’ve taken myself (with the exception of my helicopter jumps a while back, using a chest mount), I included the full canopy ride and landing. In later videos, I’ll just include the freefall.
I’ll post more videos in the future here, provided they are of sufficient interest!
Time for another round-up of weird science facts from twitter! Click below to find out this guy was dressed for, and how it didn’t turn out so well for him.
Ever since I read Dmitry Glukhovsky’s sublime 2005 novel Metro 2033, I’ve been interested in reading more Russian science fiction. The next natural choice was the classic 1972 novel Roadside Picnic, by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.
It’s a bit daunting to write a blog post about a book that is widely regarded as one of the greatest science fiction novels of all time, and deservedly so: what can I add to the discussion that hasn’t already been said? I won’t presume to add new insight about the book, but will simply share those thoughts that occurred to me while reading.
For those who don’t follow me on Twitter, I thought I should share the news here: I received word from my department chair today that my promotion to Full Professor of Physics and Optical Science at UNCC was approved!
If you’re unfamiliar, there are typically 3 stages of promotion for faculty at U.S. universities. One is hired as a tenure track Assistant Professor. After about 5 years, one goes up for tenure and, if earned, becomes an Associate Professor with tenure. Finally, after a comparable amount of time, if the faculty member has demonstrated that they have become a prominent member of their field and an essential member of the department, college, and university, they can earn promotion to Full Professor. It is the highest rank a faculty member can earn, and I’ve done it!
You may ask, what does a “Full Professor” do with themselves? Well, I’m of course new to the field, but this is my impression, in gif form, of how it goes.
I recently participated again in the annual UNCC Science and Technology Expo, showing off neat science demos to the public. This year, I decided to add a table of “Optics and Illusions,” to show how science and our own brains can be used to trick us. Of all the cute tricks I showed, however, none was as popular as the Mirascope that I purchased for $9!
The device produces a clever optical illusion; I recently purchased a slightly larger version of the Mirascope, and a video of it in action is below. (Apologies for the quality; I had a hard time trying to focus on the image. I’ll post a better video as soon as I can take one.)
A small object placed within the device produces an image that appears to hover right over the central hole. The video does not even do the effect justice; it is really something one needs to see for oneself. Both the Mirascope and its larger competition bill themselves as “holograms,” though the effect is not a true hologram in any sense of the word! Rather, it is a clever implementation of simple geometrical optics. Explaining how it works is an excellent opportunity to talk about some basics of light propagation, and how light forms images.
The author of Skulls in the Stars is a professor of physics, specializing in optical science, at UNC Charlotte. The blog covers topics in physics and optics, the history of science, classic pulp fantasy and horror fiction, and the surprising intersections between these areas. 
Skulls in the Stars 
