Recent content by chaszz

I am reading another book by Blake Crouch -- excellent. Once again I will recommend him without naming a book, because everything I've read by him has been full of imagination and thrills. Try anything he has written.

Thank you for that. I have read Scalzi and enjoyed him. Will explore further. And thanks to those who recommended some other literary fiction writers.

I am struggling through Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves. A good exciting idea, but I find the reams and endless reams of descriptions of hardware, spacecraft , orbital mechanics, and docking maneuvers very boring. The interaction among the characters is also boring. am skipping far more than I’m...

P.S. I'd like to recommend a 20th century book many might have missed. It's one of my all-time favorites. The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Niven's novels sometimes have various problems you kind of have to ignore while reading. Not this one -- superb all the way.

I'll try some of the books recommended here. I also am desperate. I too liked Pushing Ice. I find in general that a good number of the 800 or 1,000 page tomes are superficial, showy and boring. Stephenson has never caught my interest... go figure. I liked Reynolds for two books or so then found...

The spacetime near a star is bent by the star’s gravity. A photon traveling through that spacetime follows the bent pathway. According to Einstein, this a more accurate way of describing it than speaking of “attraction.”

"No, but you will if you want to confirm that it's actually correct. I haven't demonstrated that it's correct; I've only suggested it. If you are satisfied with just having it suggested and don't feel the need to confirm it, that's your choice; but you should understand that in that case, you...

I am actually right now involved in packing and moving to a new home, but when I get time will try some calculating along the lines suggested (I did do well in high school math). However, from my original point of view, the response below from PeterDonis, and two others, gave me a good part of...

To expand a little more on this... 1. As part of the website purpose on the first page, it says "Our goal is to provide a community for people (whether students, professional scientists, or hobbyists)..." 2. If the site requires questions to be framed or discussed in mathematical terms, why...

I am a layman who is very interested in physics, but I am neither a physicist nor a physics student. I keep up with the field the best I am able by reading popularizations, and have read hundreds of them. I do not have the math or the aptitude or the technical knowledge to calculate things. I...

I see. But "...briefly exceeding the energy of all the starlight in the universe." Did we capture the brief moment referred to there? If so, it would seem it should be at least as bright as one ordinary star by the time it got here. Or anyway, not among the most imperceptible things that we've...

This is a quote from an article written by a Phd student in physics in the online magazine Aeon (https://aeon.co/ideas/gravitational-waves-will-bring-the-extreme-universe-into-view): "Consider the properties of the September 14 event: the signal was generated by two objects, each roughly 35...

The mystery of dark matter seems to resist solution. Search after search comes up empty for the various hypothetical particles that could account for it. Is it possible that gravity itself in sufficient density, as on a galactic scale, has some multiplier effect we have not discovered and GR...

Einstein said one his happiest realizations was that a person in free fall would feel no weight. Unless I am mistaken he said this. But didn't Newton realize this?

I know that Newton's work made possible the Industrial Revolution, but I don't know how. I understand his impact on subjects like astronomy, gravity, and predicting motion, but not on mechanics and industrial technology. The steam engine was the most important machine in the early Industrial...