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Hontas FarmerRSS Feed of this column.

My research focuses on astrophysics from massive star formation to astroparticle physics. Born and raised in Chicagoland I have lived in Bellwood, IL since 1984 and attended public schools here... Read More »

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Right now, the cotton in the clothes you are wearing may have originated from slave labor of the Uighurs of Xinjiang (not) Autonomous Region of China. The Chinese Communist Party puts out propaganda which shows happy smiling dancing Uighurs. People happy to be relocated to “reeducation” camps where they must speak Mandarin Chinese and not their own quite different language.

Anyone writing that Einstein was fundamentally wrong has not understood General Relativity.  There are really two different things which are General Relativity.  There are the principles that define General Relativity in particular the Einstein Equivalence Principle.  Then there are mathematical realizations of those principles like the Einstein Hilbert Action, from which we derive predictions from the big bang, to light bending due to the Sun, to Black Holes, and gravitational waves.  So if you see a headline saying Einstein was wrong the answer is no.  His theories were incomplete descriptions of nature.

Let us take seriously that UFOs are real, but they do not make contact because we are too far removed from them technologically to be worth the trouble.  Scientists discuss alien intelligence in various ways one big way is using the Kardashev scale. This uses the energy utilization of a species that lives in a civilization, broadly defined, to discuss their capabilities and scientific advancement. On this scale us humans might not be worth talking to and should not expect to be.

Resistance to giving up mask is the new anti-mask.  Indeed, the fact some people think it does prove that they have no idea how vaccines work.  They do not prevent infection.  Vaccines teach the body how to kill the virus so quickly that infection does not result in disease (1) (2).  Such facts were never the real point for many people.  The issue was that mask became a way to signal belonging to a political/social group during a US election year.  It became a way for elite doctrinaire (often with doctorates) liberals to show their non-existent moral and intellectual superiority.

The Chinese Space agency has achieved something interesting by launching the first part of their own space station.  This is not a breakthrough as space stations have been around for a while.  More science done in space will inevitably be good for humanity.  What is not good is the careless way they did their launch using a booster which will re-enter with no control at all, and which has a chance of hitting a populated area.  Human habitation areas are so small relative to the surface of the Earth that it is unlikely that the spent rocket body will hit anywhere near anyone.

 

Who Is Under the Rocket's Track?

 

Forget emotional arguments about whether Black Lives Matter or All Lives Matter or any specific case.  There is one easy to verify fact that proves that policing in the United States is Broken. We give police a 9mm Glock that carries about 15 rounds or a similar gun.  Then we give them a 1 shot Taser.  All things being equal in a fight if the police use their one taser shot and it does not work, or misses they are going to have to shoot.  All things being equal if they must choose in a split second how to stop person A from shooting or stabbing person B there are 15 chances to one that they will use the Taser. 

It did not have to be this way.