In 18th century Europe, a most potent killer was ravaging entire populations. It had been claiming the lives of 400,000 victims a year. Those who survived its horrors were left disfigured or blinded. Those who did not internally bled to death. The destruction caused was so great, the dread so severe enough to merit its […]
Read more "The Speckled Monster"The vast expanses of interstellar space make the notion of contact with intelligent life seem rather bleak. Attempts to detect extraterrestrial civilizations have so far been in vain. The awe that such a possibility might engender and the concerns and fears that it might equally evince have fueled much of traditional thinking about the universe. But, in all […]
Read more "The Prospect of Alien Life"Whenever science is praised, its advances are often exemplified in light of the enormous practical benefits through which they had eased the labours of human life. The prolongation of life, the construction of machinery, the improvement of welfare are themes that give a somewhat distorted impression of science as solely an enterprise for practical gain, serviced entirely […]
Read more "Science Is What It Is"It only takes the rational discipline of the scientific method to look beyond the filters of romanticism that the whimsical belief of human intuition so inconveniently sets upon our views of the natural world. The natural world operates not according to our prejudices of sense and subjective value but rather to the logical consequences of […]
Read more "Remembering Charles Darwin"Is there a definition for life? The great physicist, Erwin Schrodinger, in his influential 1944 book What is Life? posed this question and remarked that “the obvious inability of present-day physics and chemistry to account for such events is no reason at all for doubting that they can be accounted for by those sciences”. But, […]
Read more "What is Life?"For centuries, the nature of light has been a source of much wonder and study. The fascinating nature of light lends the spectacular vividness to the natural world that our senses perceive. The colour of the sky embellished with bluish and reddish hues, the glittering mosaic of rainbow layers bejeweled with iridescence, and the glamoring […]
Read more "A Brief History of Light"Recently, a mysterious planet Nine was hypothesized to linger about in the outskirts of our solar system. Even with our most sophisticated equipment, we had largely been oblivious to its presence. But, deep theoretical evidence based upon the gravitational perturbations caused in the outer regions of the solar system that confirm predictions and account for […]
Read more "Planet Nine and the Obliquity of the Solar System"