ta152h0 wrote:
scientist humor is sometimes overwhelming
neufer wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Molasses_Disaster wrote:
<< ... Anthony di Stasio, walking homeward with his sisters from the Michelangelo School, was picked up by the wave and carried, tumbling on its crest, almost as though he were surfing. Then he grounded and the molasses rolled him like a pebble as the wave diminished. He heard his mother call his name and couldn't answer, his throat was so clogged with the smothering goo. He passed out, then opened his eyes to find three of his four sisters staring at him.>>
Beyond wrote:
So... white cane sugar is lesslasses
No One asked YOUR opinion
`Once upon a time there were three little sisters,' the Dormouse began in a great hurry; `and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well--'
`What did they live on?' said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking.
`They lived on treacle,' said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or two.
`They couldn't have done that, you know,' Alice gently remarked; `they'd have been ill.'
`So they were,' said the Dormouse; `VERY ill.'
Alice tried to fancy to herself what such an extraordinary ways of living would be like, but it puzzled her too much, so she went on: `But why did they live at the bottom of a well?'
`Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.
`I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone, `so I can't take more.'
`You mean you can't take LESS,' said the Hatter: `it's very easy to take MORE than nothing.'
Amazing RS Puppis, a star with a groovy echo
Astrobob, December 18, 2013
<<Have you ever seen an echo? Maybe if you’re a bat, which can form a mental picture of its environment using echolocation. Well, then, allow me to introduce you to the star RS Puppis in the constellation Puppis the Ship’s Stern. Unlike the steady sun, RS Pup pulsates like a beating heart, becoming brighter and fainter by a factor of five about every 40 days. Instabilities in the star’s core brought on by switching from hydrogen to helium fuel cause regular expansions and contractions – actual changes in the star’s size – that we see as cyclic changes in its brightness.
Lucky for us bat types, the star is swaddled in nebulosity, a swirly cloud of gas and dust. As RS Pup brightens, a pulse of light travels from near to far across the expanse of the nebula, reflecting off gas and dust to create a light echo. Watching the video might make you think you’re seeing an expanding gas cloud. That’s an illusion. Instead, light moves across the nebula like someone pointing a flashlight in a cave, the beam touching nearby walls first and then reaching farther back into the deeper recesses. Every 5-6 weeks another pulse echoes across the murky gas clouds.
We hear an echo when sound bounces off objects in the environment and reflects back to our ears; echoes around RS Puppis happen the same way except with light instead of sound.
Interestingly, as the reflected light bounces off the nebula’s nooks and crannies, it takes a variety of different paths through the gas and arrives at Earth after light that travels straight from star to telescope. This helps reinforce the ‘expanding gas cloud’ illusion.>>
