English
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Good Reading
‘Wherever you go you will have the choice of good or bad reading, and as reading has such a lasting effect on the mind, you should try to read only good things.‘― Juliette Gordon Low
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Lise Meitner. A Life in Physics, Ruth Lewin Sime (ISBN 978-0-520-20860-5, University of California Press)
This is the second biography of Lise Meitner I read. After reading the biography by Patricia Rife I was at first hesitant to also go and read this book by Ruth Lewin Sime. But after finishing the book I have to say it was well worth every minute. Where the biography of Patricia Rife focused…
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Understanding Nature’s Secrets: Insights and Reflections
‘There are no secrets about the world of nature. There are secrets about the thoughts and intentions of men.‘― Robert Oppenheimer
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Lise Meitner and the Dawn of the Nuclear Age, Patricia Rife (ISBN 978-0817637323, Birkhäuser)
A very nice biography about one of the ‘forgotten’ women of science. I came across a reference to this book somewhere and decided to read it as part of my ‘atomic’ theme. It also fits nicely into a series of books I am reading about women scientists. I had read the excellent ‘The making of…
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Exploring Vulcan: From Star Trek to Mercury’s Orbit
In Star Trek 3 : The Search for Spock, the resurrected Spock is found on the Genisis planet. But where can we find the planet Vulcan ? Vulcan is the god of fire and in the 19th century peculiarities were observed in the orbit of the planet Mercury. This anomaly in Mercury’s orbit could was…
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Understanding Gell-Mann: Giants versus Dwarfs
‘If I have seen further than others, it is because I am surrounded by dwarfs.‘― Murray Gell-Mann
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Remembering Solar System Planets: Easy Mnemonics
Also have trouble remembering the planets of our solar system and their sequence according to distance from the sun ? Fortunately some good mnenomics have been invented for this. Like this one : My Very Elegant Mother Just Served Us Nachos. Or if you are from the old guard when Pluto was still a planet…
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Vienna ahead of the curve
‘By the end of the century, Vienna had given birth to Viktor Adler’s socialism and Theodor Herzl’s Zionism. It was the home Sigmund Freud loved to hate and the political base for Karl Lueger, the city’s longtime mayor, whose heady mix of pupulism and anti-Semitism drew the rapt attention of the young Adolf Hitler. If…
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