Measure for Measure

the interesting thing about this is how they decided who are the most famous scientists: Google Books.

It has been said that massive computers and huge banks of data may change the scientific method: you don't need to start with a hypothesis, just let the computer crunch a big pile of numbers and something interesting will fall out.

In this case someone studied one third of the books in Google Books, going back 200 years and calculated the fame of scientists based on how often each was mentioned in books. The measurement standard was Charles Darwin: the average number of times he has been mentioned per year since he turned 30 is a Darwin (D). Most others are measured in thousands of that, or milli-Darwins (mD). There is a link to the data so you can search for your favorite name or phrase (be careful, it is case sensitive).

Amazing stuff

By the way, the lovely graph by chazmatazz has nothing to do with Google Books or the Science Hall of Fame.  I just liked it..

The Sky-Beast Feeds

Lunar Eclipse (2007)
Originally uploaded by Ｌｕｖ（Ｓｉｃ.）日本光学

Staggered out of bed at 2:30 this morning to watch the total eclipse. Of the many photos showing up on Flickr this morning, this one is the closest to what I saw (and yet another cool thing about Flickr - hit refresh and watch newly loaded photos of Eclipse 2007 appear).

For once the weather gods of Bellingham decided to play nice. The sky was clear and the weather was cool but dry.

Watching through binoculars I couldn't help but wonder: when did someone first see an event like this and, instead of thinking some cosmic catastrophe was taking place, think: huh! That looks like a round shadow on the moon. And the sun is behind us, so maybe it's the earth's shadow?

I know the classical Greeks had it figured out, but I doubt that they were the first. How many centuries ago did somebody first solve the puzzle?

And on that profound note I attempted to rediscover my bed.

Hero is my hero

So, how long have we had programmable robots? Would you believe 2000 years? A Greek dude named Hero built a device on wheels that he could program to move forward, back, turn, pause, etc. His programming device? A piece of string, some weights, and some wheat grains. Read the article in New Scientist http://tinyurl.com/2u732e for a clearer idea of the thing.