… Canary Islands, that is (named after dogs, not birds). Anyway, PhD comics has a semi-funny (chuckle-worthy, I suppose) panel on the artist’s recent trip to the observatory on Tenerife.
I went to a meeting on La Palma back in ‘98, and I will agree that they take their partying seriously. The bars don’t get crowded until 2:00, and they empty at sunup.
Hat tip to Astropixie.
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Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
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November 19th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
I was out for the weekend and just read past threads… I didn’t mean for a discussion to break out about effect and affect, but thanks for the insite… it helps.
Sooo… when *are* the Canaries going to explode and wipe out the East Coast with the huge Tsunami?
November 19th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Actually, Canary Islands are NOT named after dogs… This is a so-often-heard myth (like the astrophysics ones you talk about in your blog). There are a couple of serious theories, but no one talking about dogs. My favorite one is that the name comes after the kind of palms you can find there almost anywhere.
And for Darth Curt… that was a crazy theory announced by a company that (what a coincidence!) is in the insurance business in the East Coast.
November 19th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Part 2 was just published, and IMHO it’s better than part 1:
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive/phd111907s.gif
“So far, all of reality seems to be described by exquisite, elegant mathematical equations. We can’t give up now. It’s gotta be beautiful all the way down.”
November 19th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Probably not in our lifetime. The question is, which part of the USA will get it first — the Eastern Seaboard (Canaries), the West Coast (Hawaii / The Big One), or the Mountain West (Yellowstone).
If the terrorists don’t get us, our geology will… eventually
November 19th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
“The bars don’t get crowded until 2:00, and they empty at sunup.”
That’s it, I’m goin’.
November 19th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Completely off topic, but…
I’m just watching a rerun of our Mythbuster pals where they attempt to shatter a car’s windows with a large sub-woofer.
Is there a BABlogee out there who is an expert in this sort of thing,
Because I am pretty sure frequency matters here, not just the absolute Sound Pressure Level.
I.E. What hurts more?
Hitting your nose off a wall thirty times at one mile per hour.
OR?
Once at thirty miles per hour.
Would love a simple answer.
Shaun
November 19th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
shaun cowan says: “What hurts more? Hitting your nose off a wall thirty times at one mile per hour. OR? Once at thirty miles per hour.
Would love a simple answer.”
I know your question is facetious, but there is a simple answer.
Setting the amount of energy absorbed by your nose at 1 MPH to “E”, hitting your nose 30 x at 1 MPH = 30E
The amount of energy goes up with the square of velocity, so the amount of energy absorbed once at 30 MPH is 30^2 or 900E.
- Jack
November 19th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
[...] here for full [...]
November 20th, 2007 at 1:53 am
One of the best things about being an astrophysicist was going to meetings on Tenerife. My first conference, as a second-year PhD student, was there. Three of us from our group took an apartment for two weeks – one week conferencing followed by a week of getting outrageously drunk and totally failing to score with every chick we met.
Tenerife is a strange place. Although it is very small in total extent, its extreme ruggedness and altitude gives it tremendous variety and that lends it an impression of size out of all proportion to its actual area on the globe. Once you get away from the tourist-traps you can find nearly-unspoilt valleys as well as the weird volcanic landscapes.
November 20th, 2007 at 5:44 am
Thanks for the link, BA. I like that one.
“Where are the stars?”
“That’s the liquid nitrogen nozzle”
Heehee.
November 20th, 2007 at 7:11 am
I’ve been to tenerife twice and the islands as a whole seven or eight times, but it had nothing to do with astrophysics, for some reason all Swedes go there at some point and often frequently. It’s one of those places where the critical mass of people wanting to go got so high that suddenly it got pretty cheap to do so and more people wanted to go as well. It’s also not freezing bloody cold in the winter, so it’s a good place to hit during the -30C months. We mostly drink a lot of the cheap alcohol, sleep with exotic strangers that also came or were there anyway and bitch at british students who showed up to hand out flyers for the bars.
November 20th, 2007 at 8:30 am
I was there (La Palma and Tenerife) back in 1986 with a group of Norwegian amateur astronomers. We were there mainly to observe Halley’s Comet but also to visit the two island’s observatories. We drove up the mountain from our hotel on the coast every evening. The tourists at the hotel must have thought we were completely mad dressed in full winter clothing (it was under zero centigrade up on the mountain while it was mid twenties on the coast). The seeing there was absolutely amazing.
November 20th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Thanks Jack,
Altough my example was a bit rhetorical it actually was counter to my main point, which was, in the Mythbusters test they hit the car’s glass with 120+Db(A) @ 20Hz.
I would like to see the results if they were to try
118Db(A) @ 1000+Hz.
P.S. Jack,
My education doesn’t reach far enough to know the math behind that assumption, but I’d love if you could post it.
Shaun
November 20th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
shaun cowan says:
> Thanks Jack,
You’re welcome.
> in the Mythbusters test they hit the car’s glass
> with 120+Db(A) @ 20Hz.
>
> I would like to see the results if they were to try
>
> 118Db(A) @ 1000+Hz.
>
> My education doesn’t reach far enough to know the
> math behind that assumption, but I’d love if you could post it.
Wave energy isn’t exactly my field, so someone else will have to provide the math. But I’m curious why you picked those particular amplitudes and frequencies (I didn’t see the show). Since DbA is a log scale, going from 120 to 118 is a reduction of about 4% in intensity, not the 2% it would seem.
- Jack
November 21st, 2007 at 1:41 am
And it should be dB not Db.