Thursday, October 29, 2020

Clear Nights, Full Moon

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The full Moon on the 31st is a problem, but the nights are clear and cold. So, I took out my Explore Scientific First Light 102-mm refractor...
Saturday, October 24, 2020

New Telescope: Explore First Light 102 mm Refractor

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The problem with consumer goods is that at the designers are not you. Everything is always a matter of trade-offs. The decisions that other ...
Thursday, October 22, 2020

Galileo and Saturn: Epistemology not Optics

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It is commonly claimed that Galileo did not perceive the rings of Saturn because the telescope he was using was not capable of magnifying th...
Sunday, September 27, 2020

Celestial Mechanics

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I first got interested in celestial mechanics in 1978. I enrolled in three independent study classes at two schools, New Mexico State Univer...
Thursday, September 17, 2020

Hail to the Spartan Victors?

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I do not remember where I was driving when I saw this banner. The incongruity prompted me to stop and take a picture. I found it again in my...
Tuesday, September 8, 2020

Pencil Notes: Reflections on Henry Petroski’s "The Pencil"

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“Yet, perhaps in part because specialization was no doubt as common in ancient times as it is today, the written history of engineering is s...
Monday, September 7, 2020

The Pencil: History, Design, and Circumstance

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The book opens and closes with the fact that the pencil’s ubiquity rendered it invisible. On pages 5 and 346 the author tells of being unabl...
Monday, August 31, 2020

The Fountainhead: an exploded view of one scene

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We lose the past too easily. Ayn Rand was born in 1905. In The Fountainhead , anyone of mature professional status 1922-1942 would have been...
Tuesday, August 18, 2020

Neighborhood Book Kiosks

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The first one in my neighborhood appeared in February and I thought that it was unique. I saw another one a bit farther from home. It finall...