For 20 years I have looked for the green flash. I have looked from mountain tops and from canyon rims. I have looked from the coasts of two continents. I have looked at sunrise and I have looked at sunset. I have not seen it.
Articles with 1985
The green flash at sunset • ESO/G. Lombardi (CC By 3.0)
The Mérode Altarpiece • Workshop of Robert Campin
Two worlds in perfect balance
I have before me on my desk a reproduction of the Mérode Altarpiece, a painting on three panels by a 15th century Flemish master believed by many scholars to be Robert Campin. The triptych depicts the moment of the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel announces to the Virgin that she is to become the mother of Christ. It is a warm, marvelous work, rich with both cultural and religious meaning.
Argonne National Laboratory Supercomputer (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Supercomputers can change physics
There is a new generation of supercomputers on the horizon, machines that are many times faster and more powerful than anything existing today. It is my guess that the new machines will revolutionize physics. They will not just change the way we do physics; rather, they will change the way physicists think about the natural world.
Brilliant blue-white Sirius • Photo by Mellostorm (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Sirius joins us to the stars
There was a time, before Galileo turned his telescope heavenward, when people believed that the stars were immutable. The celestial sphere, at God’s feet, was fixed and eternal. When something new was observed in the sky — a comet, perhaps — it was assumed to belong to the earthly realm, somewhere below the Moon.
Halley's Comet in 1986 • Kuiper Airborne Observatory (Public Domain)
Halley’s comet: a beautiful blur of light
Comet Halley is destined to disappoint a lot of people. Maybe it is time to hear from someone who has not been disappointed.
Nevado del Ruiz in 2013 • Photo by Adrian Jacobo Restrepo Granada (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Life precarious on crustal cracks
For a year the mountain had been unquiet. Smoke, rumblings, and tremors signaled that pressure was building inside the peak. Then, on the evening of Wednesday, November 13, Nevado del Ruiz blew its top.
Gavia immer, or Common Loon • Photo by John Picken (CC BY 2.0)
For the loon, a cry of distress
In autumn Thoreau listened for the sound of the loon on Walden Pond. He called it “a wild sound, heard afar and suited to the wildest lake.” Another time he heard “a long-drawn unearthly howl, probably more like a wolf than any bird.” We need, said Thoreau, “the tonic of wildness.” The loon’s voice was part of that tonic.
Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash
A wisp of matter
The neutrino is the spook of the world of subatomic particles. It has no electric charge, and possibly no mass. It is a mere whiff of a particle, a whisper of matter, a sweet nothing. The neutrino is only barely lodged in the realm of existence.
Photo by Benjamin Voros on Unsplash
August’s shower of space dust
If it is good luck to see a shooting star, then this could be your lucky night. This is the peak of the Perseid meteor shower, the richest show of the year. If the night is clear and you are patient and can get far enough from the city lights to find dark skies, you might see a few dozen meteors per hour tonight.
The eggshell Earth • National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Public Domain)
Consider the drift
Humans have an appetite for the fabulous. Once that appetite was satisfied by unicorns, hippogriffs, mermaids, or monsters. Today, more often than not, it is satisfied by UFOs, abominable snowmen, and other pseudo-scientific phenomena.