Mark R. Kelly
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Recent Posts
- Stephen King, THE INSTITUTE (2019)
- Isaac Asimov: THE EARLY ASIMOV (1972)
- Links and Comments: Sustainability and Rural Living
- Robert A. Heinlein: SIXTH COLUMN (1941/1949)
- Link and Comments: Scientists Underestimating Climate Change
- Link and Comments: Why Trust Science?
- Link and Comments: School Debates and Motivated Reasoning
- Robert Silverberg: REVOLT ON ALPHA C (1955)
- Arthur C. Clarke, PROFILES OF THE FUTURE (1962..1999)
- Richard Dawkins: OUTGROWING GOD: A Beginner’s Guide (2019)
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Archives
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Meta
Category Archives: Astronomy
Frank: LIGHT OF THE STARS
Adam Frank’s LIGHT OF THE STARS: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth (Norton, 2018) asks, what can thinking about the prospect of alien civilizations tell us about our own fate? Currently our species’ story (by those of us … Continue reading
Posted in Astronomy, Book Notes, Cosmology, Species Reset
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Neil deGrasse Tyson, ASTROPHYSICS FOR PEOPLE IN A HURRY
This slender volume of magazine essays came out nearly a year ago, and I read it then, and thought it pleasant but nowhere near foundational. But since it still shows up on bestseller lists, nearly a year later, and has … Continue reading
Posted in Astronomy, Book Notes, Cosmology
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The Stars Have Names
Here’s an interesting article from the December 6th, 2016 New York Times, Twinkle, Twinkle Little [Insert Name Here], by Dennis Overbye (the print title was “Twinkle, Twinkle, Who?”), about how the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has finally sat down to … Continue reading
Posted in Astronomy, Personal history
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Bad Astronomy, 1
I’m currently reading through the eponymous book by the popular ‘Bad Astronomy’ blogger Phil Plait, now posting regularly at Slate.com, where he celebrates scientific breakthroughs and criticizes anti-science movements (anti-vaxxers, state-sanctioned teaching of creationism, etc.). His first book, which I’ll … Continue reading
Posted in Astronomy, Book Notes, MInd
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Links and Comments: the vastness of the universe; Hubble photos; the physics of everyday life; science books; creationists and the possibility of alien life
Vox: 11 images that capture the incredible vastness of space. Related: Phil Plait celebrates 25 Years of Cosmic Treasures: Hubble’s 12½ Greatest Hits \\ Physicist Sean Carroll this week references an earlier post that spells out an important point: The … Continue reading
Links and Comments: Pale Blue Dot; 10 Commandments; Evolution; Tribalistic thinking; Answers for Creationists
I have a batch of links with notes from almost a month ago that I never got around to posting. Let me catch up. On the theme in recent posts of awe-inspiring graphics or videos, here’s a piece by Phil … Continue reading
Posted in Astronomy, Evolution, Psychology, Religion, Science, Ten Commandments
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Links and Comments: Powers of Ten; Nineteen Eighty-Four doublespeak; Climate change; Failed conservative predictions of doom
Today’s persusing of websites. (I have more links and comments from newspapers and magazines, but not the time at this moment to post…) First, to complement yesterday’s link to Vox’s 40 maps that explain outer space, here is the earliest, … Continue reading
Posted in Astronomy, Culture, Thinking
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Links and Comments: The Universe; Narratives and Conservatives; PW reviews; the Right-Wing Myth
Catching up from the past week. First, refining the Provisional Conclusions, I’ve switched the order of the first two, and of the last two. This shifts the entire list to a more positive, rather than negative, spin, I think. \\ … Continue reading
Posted in Astronomy, Culture, Narrative
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Links and Comments: The Size of the Universe; The Size of the Planets
» NPR’s blog Cosmos & Culture: Lessons From The Beginning Of Time. One report, among many in the past few days, that the apparent detection of ‘gravitational waves’ from the Big Bang, a year ago, was a false alarm: the … Continue reading
Posted in Astronomy, Cosmology, Science, Space
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Interstellar
To begin with, I haven’t seen anyone note the coincidence that recent two films, Interstellar and The Theory of Everything (the Stephen Hawking biopic), both key off a major unsolved problem of physics, the unification of gravity and quantum theory. … Continue reading
Posted in Astronomy, Cosmology, Culture, Films
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