Topic: Technology
The Monkeys can’t write Hamlet

The Monkeys can’t write Hamlet

by | Dec 3, 2024 |

By New York Zoological Society — Image derived from: Chimpanzee seated at a typewriter; Public Domain. I have bad news for one of statistics favorite sayings. As the story goes, given enough time and enough monkey’s randomly pressing keys on a keyboard, the complete works of shakespeare will eventually get typed out purely by chance. This is called the Infinite Monkey Theorem.  The only problem is, according to work by Stephen Woodcock and Jay Falletta, our universe won’t last long enough for this to happen… given just one monkey.  And when the increased the count to equal the...

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Telescopes galore: Euclid, Rubin, and Roman

Telescopes galore: Euclid, Rubin, and Roman

by | Nov 4, 2024 |

Back in 1998, researchers studying supernovae discovered that our universe is accelerating apart. Up until that point, it had been understood that our universe’s expansion was either going to slow to a stop, continue on as is-ish, or reverse it’s motion and collapse...

VIPER May Live to Rove Another Day

VIPER May Live to Rove Another Day

by | Sep 17, 2024 |

A computer generated concept image of the VIPER rover Despite what the contents of this and recent episodes might imply, my passion is for science not for spacecraft. The thing is, sometimes spacecraft are needed to do the science. And lately, I and many others have...

The Cost of Space Flight on the Planet

The Cost of Space Flight on the Planet

by | Sep 17, 2024 |

As a nerdy member of GenX, I can state with pride and shame that I watched Buck Rogers in the early 80s and was constantly fascinated by all the weird ways their writers found for fictional 24th century scientists to misunderstand the relics from the 20th century....

Hubble Down to One Gyro

Hubble Down to One Gyro

by | Jun 17, 2024 | ,

In a June 4 telecon with the press, NASA shared that due to recent issues, they have made the decision to operate HST in single gyro mode. This isn’t expected to have any impact on the quality of individual science images, however Hubble will need significantly more...

Robotic arms may rescue clumsy astronauts

Robotic arms may rescue clumsy astronauts

by | Jun 7, 2024 |

I have a delightfully weird tech story related to future lunar exploration. Research has shown that astronauts working on the moon are most likely to fall over when using tools, and once they fall over, getting up while wearing a space suit that restricts their motion...

Talking to Whales

Talking to Whales

by | Dec 20, 2023 |

Credit: Jodi Frediani; NOAA/National Marine Fisheries Research Permit 19703 The kinds of life many of us hope to find within our solar system likely won’t be all that intellectual. Those possible microbes on Mars might be able to respond to food or pain, but that’s...