Famous Eclipses In History And Literature

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Hank Morgan faced death in the worst way. The king had ordered he be burned at the stake. His heart sank. There was no way out. “I shall never see my friends again—never, never again,” he whispered mournfully. Unless…

Facing his doom, Hank confidently warned, unless the king freed him, “I will smother the whole world in the dead blackness of midnight; I will blot out the sun, and he shall never shine again; the fruits of the earth shall rot for lack of light and warmth, and the peoples of the earth shall famish and die, to the last man!”

No one believed him… until it was so!

King Arthur released this Connecticut Yankee; thus, scoring the perfect theatrical tension in Mark Twain’s famous story. Ah, the power of fiction. To create worlds that we can only dream of. To craft scenes we can only wish for. To fashion from our imaginations that which could only happen in the land of make believe.

But wait! Twain’s story telling borrowed from actual events (as Hank Morgan attests in the Continue Reading “Famous Eclipses In History And Literature”

CONFIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM TO PRESIDENT TRUMAN – 17JULY 1945

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N.B.: In Spring of 1981, as part of an assignment for History 111B – The American Nation, 1865-Present, the following paper was submitted as though it was written by a scientific liaison to President Truman at the July 1945 Potsdam Conference. Naturally, to keep within the time frame, the preceding character had many limitations. Scientists, even important ones like Oppenheimer, had no inkling of the military situation and were not informed of the diplomatic situation.14 For this reason, the character does not discuss the political ramifications of outdoing the Soviets because he would not know of the oncoming break in relations. Every attempt was made to draft this hypothetical report in the manner which a science writer in July of 1945 would have written it. This was done by diving into various science-oriented and news-oriented periodicals during that period. Please remember, the language of this fictitious report may seem naïve, ignorant, or even offensive by today’s standards, but it reflects what was known and thought on July 17, 1945.

CONFIDENTIAL

* * * * * SECURITY 1 PRIORITY * * * * *

MEMORANDUM TO PRESIDENT TRUMAN

 

SUBJECT:Continue Reading “CONFIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM TO PRESIDENT TRUMAN – 17JULY 1945”

How To Be Successful: The Explosive Truth

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(continued from “Why The Harvard MBA Should Be FIREd”)

Remember those paint-by-numbers kits we got as kids for too many birthdays? They had the allure of any typical get-rich-quick scheme. Each package featured the finished painting on its cover. It looked like a masterpiece. You just knew the Louvre had a space just for it, probably right next to the Mona Lisa. And – here’s the kicker – in just a few short hours you will have created an exact copy, suitable for hanging on your mother’s refrigerator!

Oh, joy, rapture! I got artistic talent!

And it was so easy, wasn’t it? Each kit came with clearly numbered paints, each number corresponding to a numbered shape on the heavy cardboard canvas supplied. It was as simple as 1, 2, 3… Picasso!

Picasso?!

You dreamed Monet and you got Picasso. And that was being generous. As you painted, you saw nothing but a series of random splotches of color. You might see an image, but Continue Reading “How To Be Successful: The Explosive Truth”

It Can’t Be Both: It’s Either Science or Marketing

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This is going to sound like it’s coming out of left field, but it isn’t.

It is somewhat related to this day in history (July 16th).

No, it’s not that it’s the day after my birthday. It’s the anniversary of the liftoff of Apollo 11. Man’s landing on the moon should be the greatest case study of inspiration, project management, and engineering. It already stands as the greatest achievement in the history of mankind.

Think about the above paragraph as you read this column.

Now, on to the real story.

Again, it’s going to sound like I’m coming out of left field, but don’t give up. Keep reading and the dots will coalesce into a constellation that makes it all clear.Continue Reading “It Can’t Be Both: It’s Either Science or Marketing”

Are You an Instigator, a Skeptic, or Merely Somebody Else’s Tool?

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They say the world is made up of two types of people. They’re wrong. The world consists of three types of people, but two of those types get all the press.

Journalists like to frame issues in a binary fashion – one side against another. That’s simple. It’s black and white. It’s A versus B. Reporters don’t do this because they can’t handle the complexity of multiple opposing points of view. They structure their stories as a duel between competing interests because readers find those stories easiest to digest. The audience finds such pairings quite familiar. Literature is replete with examples: Ahab vs. Moby Dick, Sherlock Holmes vs. Professor Moriarty, and Bambi vs. Godzilla, to name a few.

It’s not just drama. Philosophy often has an attraction to complimentary combinations. We see this most markedly in the Taoist notion of “dualistic-monism” as expressed in the Continue Reading “Are You an Instigator, a Skeptic, or Merely Somebody Else’s Tool?”

Deeds, Not Words

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIf you think that title might sound heretical coming from a wordsmith, just wait ‘til you read the rest of this column.

Say what you will about former Buffalo Bills coach Doug Marrone (I never thought he was cut out for the job), but he did leave one indelible mark in my brain: “Don’t confuse effort with results.” This was one of the bromides that he posted on the walls of the Ralph Wilson Fieldhouse for all his players (and Bills fans) to stare at. In a nutshell, it’s what Yoda told Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back: “Do or do not, there is no try.”

We’re all told to try our best. That’s fine. But we need to accept that it’s not good enough. When you try something, the result is you either succeed or fail. That’s all there is to it. There is Continue Reading “Deeds, Not Words”

The Daddy-Daughter Talk… About Gravity Waves

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Graphic Source: NASA.gov

Graphic Source: NASA.gov

On the morning of Thursday, February 11, 2016 at a press conference in Washington DC, an international team of scientists from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) announced the discovery of Gravity Waves. Long sought after, this phenomenon was first postulated by Albert Einstein more than a century ago in his seminal 1915 paper on the General Theory of Relativity. While the major media jumped on this “universe changing” story, the reports were not adequate to fully explain the concept of Gravity Waves and the implications of their discovery. Leave it, then, to the innocent questions of a young daughter to her wise father to explain The Facts of Life and Gravity Waves. What follows is the transcript of the actual conversation that occurred through Facebook messaging on Friday, February 12, 2016:

Daughter: [Friday 3:20pm] “Gravitational Waves Detected, Confirming Einstein’s Theory” (New York Times, February 12, 2016) “Scientists say they heard the faint chirp of two black holes colliding a billion light-years away, fulfilling Einstein’s general theory of relativity.” (nytimes.com, accessed February 12, 2016)… did you see this? A lot of my friends liked this story, but they don’t know what it means.
Daddy: That’s because it’s not something tangible. We can’t really “see” a physical “wave.” What we’re doing is detecting radio waves – i.e., sounds. This branch of astronomy, called “Radio Astronomy” has been around for a while (it took off in the 1960s when a couple of Bell Labs engineers accidentally discovered it wasn’t pigeon poop, but Continue Reading “The Daddy-Daughter Talk… About Gravity Waves”

The Speed of Light

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[This Commentary originally appeared in the October 11, 1990 issue of The Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel.]

CarosaCommentaryNewLogo_259One hundred and eighty six thousand miles per second. It takes light about one and one-third seconds to go from the Earth to the Moon. We know this because scientists have shot lasers at the reflectors the Apollo astronauts left on the lunar surface. The Moon orbits at a distance of 240,000 miles from the Earth.

One hundred and eighty six thousand miles per second. The light emitted from our Sun has aged a little over eight minutes by the time it hits the Earth. The Earth circles the Sun from a span of 93 million miles away.

One hundred and eighty six thousand miles per second. That’s equal to nearly six trillion miles in one year. We refer to this distance as one light-year. The nearest star (Proxima Centauri) looms a mere 4.3 light-years from our Solar System. That translates to just Continue Reading “The Speed of Light”

Day 16 – November 29, 2009 (Sun): Post a Discussion Tweet

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Start of Day Twitter Stats: Follow: 98 Followers: 86 Listed: 5

Missed yesterday? Go here to read what happened on Day 15 – November 28, 2009 (Sat): Post a Link Tweet

twitter_power_joel_comm_150Wow. I blocked my first follower today. I don’t get it. Why do these types of spammers spam? I could understand legitimate businesses. For instance, I must have made a comment on video games on Friday because I got a bunch of gamer followers as a result (as well as @Santaclaus_2012). I’ve heard from others Twitter needs to control spam or face extinction. Hey! That’s a great discussion! I’ll tweet it right now…

(Hours later.) @leedrake was the only response. He brought up a great point. While e-mail is permission based, Twitter is not. In other words, caveat emptor. I’m still not sure what that means in the end for Twitter, because sometimes buyers prefer to embrace laziness. They don’t want to take the time to “beware” and often prefer some middle-man take care of all the nasty stuff.

I did get into an interesting back and forth about Einstein with @susanbeebe. But, that was the extent of my discussions. I guess too many people spent the day watching football. I got a little of the same in (along with some male bonding with my son), but the bulk of the day saw me writing the script for the AstronomyTop100.com official Top Ten Countdown Awards Show scheduled for this coming Friday night.

I’ve now passed the half-way point in this experiment and I can tell you one early conclusion: I possess no desire to fritter my life on Twitter.

How many followers do you think I’ll have after 30 days? Click here to enter your guess on my Survey Monkey survey “Chris Carosa’s 30-Day Plan to Dominate Twitter Experiment.” There’s no prize, but the fan who guesses the closest correct number the earliest will “win” and I’ll mention you if you want me to.

Find out today’s results on Find out today’s results on Day 17 – November 30, 2009 (Mon): Post an Action Tweet

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