In the 18th Century, navigating across the seas was fraught with danger and error. With no practical method of determining longitude, sailors had no accurate means of pinpointing their position at sea. Ships had sailed forth only to blunder off course and never return. Sailors had died by the thousands. And, mistakes had jeopardized trade […]
Read more "The Clock That Changed the World"Food supply would certainly be one of the most important things to consider in any sustainable life support system destined for long duration space flights or future space habitation plans. Future life-support technologies for Mars missions and beyond hinge upon the ability to regenerate food products, a major hurdle which has so far not been […]
Read more "Food in Space"The ability to numerically ordinate quantities or perceive number is intuitively thought to be a unique human capacity. Such an ability, however, has been demonstrated in non-human animals all the same, including but not limited to dolphins, birds, chimps, ants, and bees. It is thought that the ability to perceive number is an innate ability […]
Read more "The Numerical Abilities of Non-Human Animals"“In solving a problem of this sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backwards. That is a very useful accomplishment, and a very easy one, but people do not practice it much. In the everyday affairs of life, it is more useful to reason forwards, and so the other comes to be […]
Read more "On the Ability to Reason Backwards"The Industrial revolution can perhaps be characterized as a transition from humanised handicraft to mechanized manufacture, as actuated by a complex structure of successive and interweaving technological innovations. But, what spurred such technological advancement remains contentious. What is it about the 18th Century that made it distinctively amenable to such technical change? And, importantly, what […]
Read more "Ideas That Propelled the Industrial Revolution"The mere happenstance of a coincidental sequence of events, put together by the blind works of nature, has serendipitously manifested itself in this fascinating complexity around us today, that only appears to bear the illusion of an orderly calibration of deliberate design. This happenstance of undirected natural processes has led to self-directed sentient beings, pondering […]
Read more "The Happenstance of Existence"Rogue planets wander about in interstellar space, detached from their stars and dislodged from their orbits to float freely into the desolate void of the cosmos! A mechanism which presents a very intriguing phenomenon for astronomers. Although such planets are quite elusively hard to detect owing to their relatively faint nature, a number have been discovered. […]
Read more "The Wandering Planet"One of the crowning achievements of the methods and tools of science is their self-correcting systematic approach of interrogating nature and therefore of perpetually morphing one’s knowledge of the natural world in accordance with the ensuing evidence of reality. In this manner, the experimenter suspends and subverts any preconceived notions, personal prejudices, or certain interests, […]
Read more "Newton’s “Four Rules of Reasoning” in Philosophy"The asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter offers an excellent platform to survey the origins of our solar system. Therein lies Ceres, a dwarf planet and the target of an ongoing NASA mission. This dramatically cratered and inviting world has piqued the interest of astronomers and astrobiologists alike. In 2007, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft was launched in order to […]
Read more "Celestial Worlds Beyond Our Own: The Story of Ceres"We take for granted the scientific norms and practices which govern many of today’s standard publication procedures in modern scientific journals. But, indeed, the development of modern scientific discourse owes its immense history back to 17th century England. Henry Oldenburg, a 17th century German theologian, saw the need for a means to disseminate scientific knowledge […]
Read more "The Establishment of Modern Scientific Discourse"
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