Size
[“… there are more than 10 trillion cells in the human body, and ten times that many bacteria living inside it (yes, we are more “they” than “us,” at least in number).” Spectrums, chapter 2] Justin Sonnenburg, a microbiologist at … Read more 
Spectrums
One of the great challenges of our time is that we have multiple ways of looking at the universe that independently are testable and provable, but are seemingly inconsistent with each other. If quantum physics is right, do we really … Read more
Time
[“Computer scientists often refer to the speed of a computer in “flops” – floating point operations per second. The fastest computers are just this year breaking the petaflop barrier (quadrillions of operations per second — 10^15).” Spectrums, Chapter 1] The … Read more
Size
[“… there are more than 10 trillion cells in the human body … we find inside each cell billions and billions of atoms, bound together into molecules of water, DNA, and other structures.” Spectrums, Chapter 2] Molecules vary in size … Read more
Numbers
The popular tech comic site xkcd has created an amazing huge poster to help explain terms like million, billion, and trillion… While the poster is way bigger than your screen can handle, you should see navigation aids to help you move around. … Read more
Spectrums
The more you know about the world around you, the more amazing it becomes. Unfortunately, there are those who believe that science dulls the appreciation of beauty. Not so. As Carl Sagan once quipped, “It does no harm to the … Read more
Numbers
Math students through the ages pound their heads on their desks, asking the same question: Why do the numbers 12, 60, and 360 show up so often? Specifically: 12 inches in a foot; 360 inches in 30 feet 12 is … Read more
Spectrums
The universe contains billions of galaxies, and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey has already photographed millions of them. But each galaxy is different — some are elongated, some are circular… If you look closely at a galaxy and kind of … Read more
Heat
For most of the past century, the desert city of El Azizia in northwestern Libya has held the title of hottest spot on Earth due to a temperature reading of 57.8°C (136°F) on September 13, 1922. However, after years of controversy, the title … Read more
Spectrums
Spectrums are an important way to communicate — whether expression emotion or intent. A few years ago Michael Hatch wrote a funny (and irreverent) book called Hatch’s Order of Magnitude that laid out dozens of different spectrums around us and … Read more
