ScotBlogs

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In 1969, Hans Freudenthal posed a puzzle that Martin Gardner would later call “The Impossible Problem”. Below is a 2000 version due to Erich Friedman. I have secretly chosen two nonzero digits and have separately told their sum to Sam … Continue reading →

While Dr. Wilson is away on leave this semester, I am going through 15 weeks of “Climate Monday”, in which every week I get the opportunity to highlight one graphic or animation or data tool that shows something interesting about … Continue reading →

While Dr. Wilson is on leave and taking a hiatus from his acclaimed “Fossil of the Week” series, the Department of Geology decided to fill the void with something completely different: Climate Monday. For 15 weeks in the Spring 2018 … Continue reading →

Today, CNN and several other news outlets are reporting that “Boston and part of New Hampshire will be colder than Mars” this weekend. At first glance, this sounds incredible.  It’s going to be really cold this weekend! Indeed, on Saturday, the coldest … Continue reading →

The kilogram is the only metric unit still defined by an artifact. The International Prototype Kilogram, IPK or “Le Grand K”, is a golf-ball-sized platinum-iridium cylinder in a vault outside Paris. This year I expect the General Conference on Weights … Continue reading →

Three Wooster Geologists (Dr. Karen Alley, Dr. Alex Crawford, and senior Geology major Cole Jimerson) descended on New Orleans last week to attend the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union. With 20 to 25 thousand attendees each year, this … Continue reading →

On Wednesday, September 13, 1989, I met with newly elected Physics Club officers Tom Taczak ’91, Dennis Kuhl ’90, Doug Halverson ’91, and Karen McEwen ’90 in Westminister House. I wrote in my diary, “first phys club meeting w. officers goes well”. That year … Continue reading →

One of my favorite illustrations is the cannon thought experiment from volume three of Isaac Newton‘s Principia Mathematica. Johannes Kepler argued that planets orbit elliptically with Sol at one focus. Galileo Galilei argued that terrestrial bodies fall parabolically in space … Continue reading →

Above is another beautiful image from Paul Taylor’s paleontological lab at the Natural History Museum, London. It is one of our fossil oysters (Pycnodonte vesicularis) from the French Type Campanian collected in the town of Archiac in southwestern France on … Continue reading →