I start this rubric inspired by one of my favorite scientific blog: A Quantum Diaries Survivor [focused mainly on particle phyiscs, but you can find interesting discussions also beyond this specific topic]
let´s start with the legendary Richard Feynman and one of his provocative statement:
“Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that’s not why we do it.”
after italian press didn’t say a word in advance about imminent speech of senator Obama in Berlin => most italian people were probably not informed at all about this important (maybe historical) event, these are the headlines today.
(snapshots taken on 25.07 at 9:00 am from the two major italian newspapers)
Auspico che l´evento venga degnamente seguito in tutta Europa e in particolare in Italia (qui non senza qualche giustificato timore circa lo spazio che dedicheranno i media italiani, tenetemi informato)
Pultroppo ho dovuto rinunciare a presenziare di persona all´evento, ma per pegno seguiró il tutto approfonditamente sul web e dedicheró al fenomeno Obama un paio di post su Tecnopolis. Tra l´altro vi sono un paio di interessanti questioni “tecnocratiche” da discutere come i programmi di politica tecnologica ed energetica di Obama (non privi di punti controversi) a cui spero di dedicare il prossimo post.
E ultimamente gli impegni professionali (dottorato) sono diventati sempre piu pressanti.. da cui il motivo della non regolaritá dei post e del loro livello sicuamente insoddisfacente.
The sands of time are running out for the central star of this the Hourglass Nebula. With its nuclear fuel exhausted, this brief, spectacular, closing phase of a sun-like star's life occurs as its outer layers are ejected and its core becomes a cooling, fading white dwarf. In 1995, astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to make a series of images of planetary nebulae, including the one above. Here, delicate rings of colorful glowing gas (nitrogen-red, hydrogen-green, and oxygen-blue) outline the tenuous walls of the 'hourglass.' The unprecedented sharpness of Hubble's images revealed surprising details of the nebula ejection process and may resolve the outstanding mystery of the variety of complex shapes and symmetries of planetary nebulae. Image Credit: NASA, WFPC2, HST, R. Sahai and J. Trauger (JPL) Read More
Recent Comments
BelfSleby: Wow - very awesome subject. I am goin to write about it too!!
sandrar: Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog. Cheers! Sandra. R.
Klystron: No, I didn’t. Perhaps you’re right and more details are given elsewhere. I just would have appreciated just a little more explanation also in that article. Probably because I’m always slightly more interested in methods than in results… :o)
Massimo: About the methods… have you tried to track other publications by the same authors? probably they gave away some technicalities in other and more specialistic journals. Applying the model to only two scenarios doesn’t mean much, although it can be an interesting exercise. It would be interesting to know what results they got for Palestine, Rwanda, Sudan, etc etc…...