"A man is a very small thing, and the night is very large and full of wonders." -Lord Dunzany

Posts tagged “Physics

Report from last night – Tonight G1..!

I am crazy busy today – but I just popped by my blog to show my readers an example of last night activity. The Kp-index was steadily around five, which at these latitudes is high (northern lights activity normally starts at Kp 2/3. Tonight there is a geomagnetic storm coming with an estimated strength of G1 (the scale goes from G0 – no activity to G5 where all hell breaks loose and satellites gets their curcuitboards fried and powergrids here on Earth fails).

Unfortunately there were strong winds and quite a bit of rain and partly cloudy yesterday. But still the build up to the storm was quite obvious in between the clouds!

Strong Auroral Activity is seen in between the Clouds last night.

Strong Auroral Activity is seen in between the Clouds last night.


And another one from yesterday!

Aurora borealis above the Ofoten Fjord with the mountain Veggen in the background as seen from Ankenes yesterday.

Aurora borealis above the Ofoten Fjord with the mountain Veggen in the background as seen from Ankenes yesterday.


How simple ideas lead to scientific discoveries

Adam Savage walks through two spectacular examples of profound scientific discoveries that came from simple, creative methods anyone could have followed — Eratosthenes’ calculation of the Earth’s circumference around 200 BC and Hippolyte Fizeau’s measurement of the speed of light in 1849. (Launching a series on Inventions that Shaped History)

“How Simple Ideas Lead to Scientific Discoveries” was animated by the TED-Ed Animation Team (Jeremiah Dickey, Biljana Labovic, Celeste Lai, Kari Mulholland and Franz
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