Browsing Archive: September, 2015

Water Confirmed!

Posted by on Monday, September 28, 2015, In : Astronomy

As predicted last week, the major announcement from NASA today is that the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has discovered that liquid water flows on present-day Mars. And while it may only be a seasonal flow, its mere existence has scientists excited. (The original press release can be found here)

The MRO contains a spectrometer which allows it to look for signatures of different materials. In this case the orbiter detected minerals that had been recently deposited by flowing water. The mine...
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Discovery on Mars?

Posted by on Saturday, September 26, 2015, In : Astronomy

It was announced this morning (September 25) by NASA that they are planning a major announcement of a discovery on the planet Mars. And while no one outside of the research group knows exactly what it will be, that has no stopped rampant speculation. Not being one to avoid a good bit of science speculating, here is my prediction for what the announcement will be.

The most obvious and debated would be some sign of life. Not little green men walking around and building things of course, but rath...
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The Uncertainty of Dark Matter

Posted by on Friday, September 18, 2015,

It is one of the great embarrassments of modern physics – the overwhelming literature on dark matter. A quick search through the arXiv (the repository for academic papers) reveals thousands of papers generated every year on the nature of dark matter, and even limiting it to serious contenders still provides a list of over 100 possible forms that dark matter could take.

When physics is focused on finding the one correct model, how could it happen that we have spent decades studying dark ma...
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Hints of a New Force?

Posted by on Monday, September 14, 2015, In : Particle Physics

A friend of mine forwarded a popular physics article to me this morning titled "A Crack In The Standard Model". My first thought was that it was either a crackpot article that wasn't worth reading, or that it was the biggest breakthrough of the last thirty years. As it turned out, it was neither.

The Standard Model of Particle Physics was developed through the 20th century, as new particles and new forces were discovered. However the last new particle discovered in an experiment was the top qu...
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The Random Maze Solution

Posted by on Thursday, September 10, 2015, In : Puzzles

A few weeks ago I posted an interesting mathematical puzzle involving a randomly generated maze. The short explanation of it was, "What is the probability that a randomly generated maze will be solvable?"

After many responses and stimulating discussion, it has become clear that no one has been able to solve it. And so I took some time this weekend to work out a brute force solution. And while it is not the simple solution that I was hoping for (and am still hoping someone will discover), it is...
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Back To School

Posted by on Tuesday, September 8, 2015, In : Administrative

Some loyal readers will recognize this entry as a repeat from the last three years. Each year it gets a good response, and kudos from my readers, and so as before I must appease my loyal followers...

To all the students starting University, enjoy this time of your life. Long ago when I started, a prof told me that this is the start of your real education. Now you get to choose your own courses and your own field of study. It is entirely up to you to decide what to do with this chance.

I know fr...

Free Software

Posted by on Tuesday, September 8, 2015, In : Administrative

With the arrival of September, students around the world will be returning to classes this week. And for those who are starting out at college or university, one of the most important considerations is how to live on a budget. These are the years when one has little or no income, but must bear the expenses of living independently for the first time. While giving advice on living on a budget is far too expansive to cover in this blog, I can tackle one small aspect of student life by providing ...
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The Wire Filling Problem

Posted by on Tuesday, September 1, 2015, In : Puzzles

A few months ago I posted an article about an interesting little mathematics problem called "The Random Maze", and based on the responses it got it would seem that my readership enjoys such things. And so to keep the enjoyment going, (and as a warm up exercise for the millions of students returning to school next week) I will be proposing another curious puzzle in today's article*.

As with my previous puzzle postings, I suspect that this one has been studied before but the few colleagues that ...
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Dr. Christopher Bird