Is it wrong to find pictures of destruction beautiful? This is a frame from a supercomputer simulation of the Tunguska meteorite. It exploded over Siberia in 1908 and flattened miles of trees. The simulation suggests that the devastation could have been caused by a far smaller explosion than previously thought--3 to 5 megatons, instead of 10 to 20. And since there are many more asteroids in that smaller size range, the risks of a devastating impact may be greater than previously thought. Maybe not enough to cause mass extinctions, but to knock out a fair piece of real estate. Go here to read more and to watch a series of simulation movies.
More like this
Yet another reader forwarded me a link to a rather dreadful article. This one seems to be by
someone who knows better, but prefers to stick with his political beliefs rather than an honest
exploration of the facts.
There's an interesting post over at Sentient Developments about the simulation argument.
In my post yesterday, I briefly mentioned the problem with simulations
as a replacement for animal testing. But I've gotten a couple of self-righteous
emails from people criticizing that: they've all argued that given the
Rob Knop has another post to which I can only say "Amen!", this time on the relatioship between simulation and experiment (in response to this BoingBoing post
Impresionant and really very interesting. Thanks