To the Editor #2 - Kevin Myers

Another letter to the editor found on the old machine. The Irish Independent article is here, which was in response to the column by Kevin Myers here. Maybe Kevin and this guy should get together...

Y-Leonis

I just came across some data from when I was studying physics... This is a light curve of the eclipsing binary system Y-Leonis published and validated by the American Association of Variable Star Observers. The data was collected with a 0.41m (16") telescope with f/8 Ritchey-Chretien optics on an open fork equatorial mount. There is a Santa Barbara Instrument Group (SBIG) ST-1001E large format, megapixel CCD camera mounted to the telescope via a custom filter wheel. The camera head is thermoelectrically cooled and regulated to operate at a temperature of -40C. I have another lightcurve at the AAVSO. You can generate this curve by entering the Julian date range 2452723.559 - 2452723.875. My observer code is BBD.

NGC 4921

Click Here For Link To Hi-Res 

This very deep image taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the spiral galaxy NGC 4921 along with a spectacular backdrop of more distant galaxies. It was created from a total of 80 separate pictures through yellow and near-infrared filters.

Credit:

NASA, ESA and K. Cook (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA)

Big Head Little Head

Krakow, 2007
© Brett A. Becker 

Whack Attack

I somewhat inadvertently came across my second googlewhack tonight. I was lost on wikipedia and came across a word that is a strange form of the word "symptom". I thought it might make a good crack at a whack. I thought of another rather rare word, put them together, and bang - there it was - hole in one.

My first googlewhack was about a year ago and contains the word "zabernism", even though a google of that word alone results in about 1,340,000 hits. That took about 2 hours of effort.

No Extraterrestrial Life...? Try Getting a Life!

Is this guy nuts? (click here)

According to him, since it has been determined that 500 exoplanets are too inhospitable to support life as we know it there must be no extraterrestrial life in the universe. WHAT?

Let's do come quick quick back-of-the-envelope calculations:

There are approximately 100 × 10²² stars in the observable universe. Let's be sceptical and say, i don't know,  that one in 500 (Professor Smith's magic number) stars have one planet. That leaves 20 × 10²⁰ planets. That is 2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets.  We just searched 500 of them, and came to an amazing conclustion that there is no other life in the universe. If we are stupid enough to subtract 500 from that number that leaves 1,999,999,999,999,999,999,500 planets. Let's say that we discover a new exoplanet per second. (Yeah right). It will take 63,419,583,967,529 years to search them all. That is 4,530 times longer than the universe has been in existence just to check them all. I think that perhaps Professor Smith was just a bit too early off the mark with this one.

Just to make you feel more sane, here's a new solar system to play with. And if that got boring, here's five more planets.

To the Editor #1 - Jeremy Clarkson

On my old machine I found a bunch of screenshots of letters to the editor I have written. I will post them in time...

This particular piece was written after an activist threw a pie in Jeremy Clarkson's face while receiving an honorary degree in protest for his involvement in promoting the motor industry.*

* This post is not a necessarily a declaration of the authors views, but a statement of fact.


More details are at this link.

For posterity, the letter is also at:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article570647.ece

The Sunday Times is the biggest selling English Sunday paper, with sales equaling the combined sales of The Sunday Telegraph, The Observer and The Independent on Sunday combined.

Quite content or extremely frustrated?

Vienna, July 7, 2007
 © Brett A. Becker - email me for watermark free