Category Archives: Technology

WISE

Posted on May 16, 2013 by

Go outside tonight after the sun has long set. Find a place where there are no streetlights and you haven’t a flashlight or match. Choose a night when the moon is not up and its cloudy. Now, toss your car … Continue reading →

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Year of the Dragon

Posted on May 9, 2013 by

It may not seem like it, but the world changed on May 31, 2012. Less than a year after the Space Shuttles were retired, an American spaceship had once again reached the space station and returned safely. Launched on a … Continue reading →

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Transister

Posted on May 1, 2013 by

A bit more than fifty years ago, in 1960, Sony introduced the first transistor radio. At the time, and for several years thereafter, claiming a new device had transistors was used as a marketing ploy, much as high definition is … Continue reading →

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Titan

Posted on April 30, 2013 by

Titan is Saturn’s largest moon. If you go outside some evening now, you’ll be able to see Saturn, looking like a very bright yellow star. If you have a small telescope, you should have little trouble seeing its rings and … Continue reading →

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Time

Posted on April 28, 2013 by

We’re more than ten years past our fears of Y2K and more than ten percent of the twenty-first century is now history. As long as there have been human beings, they have kept track of the time. Through most of … Continue reading →

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Tesla Coil

Posted on April 25, 2013 by

When I was growing up I came upon an old 1940 Popular Science magazine (and yes, it was old even when I was growing up). Inside, I read an article that gave detailed instructions on how to build something called … Continue reading →

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Telescopes

Posted on April 24, 2013 by

As a child I had wanted to be an astronomer. Instead, I became an author and a theologian. But I’ve never lost my love of astronomy. My first telescope was made of plastic; it was a reflector and was supposed … Continue reading →

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SETI

Posted on April 22, 2013 by

SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, is now more than fifty years old. In 1959, the Cornell physicists Giuseppi Cocconi and Philip Morrison published an article in the journal Nature proposing the idea that it might be possible to use … Continue reading →

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Apollo 13

Posted on April 14, 2013 by

On the night of April 13, 1970–43 years ago today–the words “Houston, we’ve had a problem” were uttered when an oxygen tank in the Service Module of the moon bound Apollo 13 exploded. The Lunar Module pilot of that mission, … Continue reading →

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How High

Posted on March 29, 2013 by

One day when my oldest daughter was no more than about four years old, she announced that “I’m taller than any tree that’s really short.” I suppose that’s even more true of her today, when she can drive herself and … Continue reading →

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