Science angst: On hunter-gatherers and science

11 Sep 201711 Sep 2019

(with a nod to Carl Sagan) Why are people so afraid of science? Or are they? As a scientist, or, in fact, as a curious human being, I cannot but…

Magnetars: On the boredom induced by magnetic fields

4 Apr 201610 Sep 2019

Everybody remembers them from school, surely, the little pieces of iron on a surface that align in weird shapes when you put a magnet on them. We all remember that…

Feynman’s Flower

22 Feb 201610 Sep 2019

The Sober Scientist. What an excrutiatingly weird concept to me. I am one myself, a scientist, I mean; and I know how much I have to force myself to not…

A visit to Galileo’s cellar

14 Dec 201510 Sep 2019

In some sense, this was the shortest visit to a museum ever. I had half-an-hour for this bounty of different instruments from all epochs of science since the 16th century,…

Warping drives

7 Dec 201510 Sep 2019

In science you should never say no. To anything. Period. Until it is proven wrong. Then you shout No! to the world. Technology development, now, may be a rather different…

Skipping stones like a boss

16 Nov 201510 Sep 2019

One of my favourite games as a youngster was to skip stones on water. I was really bad at it - and still I became a physicist, a rocket scientist…

Brilliant minds

2 Nov 201510 Sep 2019

I asked a stupid question on Google+. I rather often do, so that is not unusual. At about the same time of that post, I called mixing up the terms…

Why would a lake reflect a mountain?

26 Oct 201510 Sep 2019

There are many texts out there which discuss the reflection of light from surfaces. A good example would be found here. Now, as well as these articles are written, I…

Non-Newtonian curiosity

19 Oct 201510 Sep 2019

One of life’s mysteries: How can you run on a pool of Non-Newtonian fluid without asking how that is even possible? Truth be told, I suspect that the question comes…