Tag Archives: measurement

Venus transits Sun: More than a token run

Commentable: June 6, 2012
Don’t ask how many opthalmologists were involved with the transit of the planet Venus across the face of the Sun. Their involvement would not speak well of the intelligence of those dotty people who thought they could peer directly into the burning globe and see a dot 1/100 the size of the Sun. Give them [...]
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The absolutely coolest thermometer

News: Scientific Instruments    December 9, 2009
There’s nothing colder than absolute zero. In various scales that’s (in degrees): 0 Kelvin, -273.15 Celsius, -459.57 Fahrenheit. It’s so cold that the rest of the universe would have to reach that temperature to attain it, which is called absolute entropy, or the death of everything. So it’s not even theoretically possible to reach absolute [...]
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