rotation
esiegel | November 1, 2013"Galileo got it wrong. The Earth does not revolve around the Sun. It revolves around you and has been doing so for decades. At least, this is the model you are using." -Srikumar Rao
It's the end of the week, so that means its time to take on another one of your questions from the question/suggestion box, and continue our ongoing Ask Ethan series! Even though there's a backlog of hundreds of questions, you should keep sending the new ones in, as all questions are fair game for any segment. This week's question comes from reader Brian Mucha, who asks us:
Where did the sun and planets get their…
esiegel | June 16, 2013"Illusion is the first of all pleasures." -Oscar Wilde
It's tough to tell fact from fiction, and sometimes just as hard to tell reality from illusion. As long as you're enjoying yourself this weekend, I'd have to agree with Buckwheat Zydeco, and say
Let The Good Times Roll.
But despite what these images you're looking at might seem to show, there's nothing rolling at all here.
Image credit: Illustrator Fiestoforo.
Nor is anything moving, nor is there a hint of animation in any of these. Yet, based on what your eyes show you, things appear to be bulging, spinning, or more generally, there…
esiegel | May 10, 2013"As seismologists gained more experience from earthquake records, it became obvious that the problem could not be reduced to a single peak acceleration. In fact, a full frequency of vibrations occurs." -Charles Francis Richter
You've all been around long enough to be familiar with the severe damage that earthquakes can cause, rattling and cracking the ground, shaking down buildings, and creating catastrophic tsunamis tidal waves. In short, the largest ones that occur in the wrong places will cause billions of dollars worth of damage and will kill thousands of people.
Image credit: AP / Press…
esiegel | June 19, 2012"Soon the earth will tilt on its axis and begin to dance to the reggae beat to the accompaniment of earthquake. And who can resist the dance of the earthquake, mon?" -Peter Tosh
Every year, there are two special days where every place on Earth receives the same amount of sunlight -- 12 hours -- split evenly between night and day: the equinoxes!
Image credit: timeanddate.com.
Like all known objects that revolve around another due to gravity, the Earth rotates along its journey around the Sun. But on those two days of the equinox (from the Latin, meaning "equal nights"), the Earth's axis-of-…
esiegel | January 24, 2010There are plenty of examples in the music world where a cover of a song is strikingly different from the original and still interesting. Take the song You Spin Me Round, which cracked the top 5 all over Europe and North America when Dead or Alive released it. (Click for video.) 15 years later, Dope released a cover of the song in a completely different style, with an incredibly different feel. Take a listen:
It's a pretty good cover. It's interesting to listen to, it's decidedly different from the original, and it's still instantly recognizable. But by time I get to the end of the…
esiegel | May 19, 2008No, really, I can hang with the big boys!
Although this is usually something we hear from people who are seemingly out of their league, due to diminutive stature, here on Earth:
(Muggsy Bogues is awesome.) Apparently, there are stars out there that have the same Napoleon Complex. According to this Press Release, a star only 1% as bright as the Sun just released a burst of energy as powerful as 1000 solar flares!
Now, that link is only too happy to provide you with an artist's rendition of what happened:
But let's compare this with real stuff, instead. Our Sun has a magnetic field that's…