Daily Archives: May 11, 2009

Down The Line on Strings

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The (spoof) phone-in “Down The Line” on Radio 4 last week was brilliant! It featured a guest talking about science, with a particular focus on his dislike of string theory, and with the callers (the usual brilliant cross section of UK phone-in archetypes) taking the discussion all over the place: Doctor Who, soccer, “female scientists”, gay daleks, and so on and so forth.

My favourite question: “Why do they have to keep mucking about with the […] Click to continue reading this post →

The Right Tools for the Job

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pistol_grip_shuttle_toolThe space shuttle mission launching today (around 2:00pm ET) has a very special task. It is going to take some astronauts up to do some crucial repairs (see story here) on the Hubble Space Telescope. It is the last such mission (Hubble will be retired into the Pacific eventually) and has been long awaited. Please keep your fingers crossed for a successful mission to keep such an important scientific instrument working for another five (or so) years to teach us more about the universe. (Go to the Hubble site here.)

NPR had a rather good piece about the special tools that were designed to allow these repairs to be carried out. The point is that the astronauts are not just swapping out parts or modules that were designed to be swapped out (like you do a light bulb, a shower head, or a shaving foil), but they have to go in and take out things deeper […] Click to continue reading this post →