ScienceBits

Anyone who runs a website knows that a successful site has to have a high Google PageRank. Unfortunately, though, Google updates their publicly available PRs only every a few months. Moreover, the PR is only given in discrete increments, so it is hard to know whether a site improved if the actual increase is less than a PR point on average. Given that I am curious about the PR of my site, I thought I should do something. And I did, the bottom line of which is a calculator to estimate the PageRank of any site you wish.

Recently added material in ScienceBits includes:

• Estimate the basic stellar parameters using the tendency for energy equipartition. In particular, the temperature at the center of the sun, the mass-radius relationship of white dwarfs and their Chandrasekhar limit are all estimated. These were taken from my order-of-magnitude course notes.
• Row Row Row your boat, but at which maximum speed? This is a classic example of an order of magnitude analysis giving a lot of physical insight (and impressive predictive power).
• Analysis of the classic homemade water rocket, taken straight out of my first year physics majors classical mechanics notes. There is even a rocket simulator with which the trajectory can be calculated and graphed.

It may sound strange, but you are probably as likely to die from a meteor as you are from a plane crash. Think it's bizarre? Here is the statistics.

A conversation I had with a friend made me realize something interesting. Modern medical technology is responsible for the constant degradation of the human gene pool. How? Simple, we allow bad genes to propagate.

Take me for example...

Did you know that there are huge earthquakes which aren't felt? Did you know that similar waves appear everyday when two objects with dry friction between them start to move?

No, I don't hate Bill Gates. He is doing what everyone would do in a similar situation. Could I hate a man I envy? What I do hate is Microsoft products which aim at the lowest common denominator, the fact that Microsoft is deliberately ruining the software industry, and that most windowers don't realize it and are happy with Microsoft's mediocracy.

Recently added material in ScienceBits includes:

• My angle on global warming, i.e., the fact that it is mostly solar and not anthropogenic. I am sure a lot of people will not like it. Let the fun begin ;-) .
• How can snow fall at a few degrees above freezing? Ever wondered? Well, I did, and now you can find out how. If you like, there is also a calculator with which you can estimate the probability that any precipitation will be in the form of snow.

When visiting the president, I learned about a strange event that was recorded by the Columbia space shuttle: A lightning flash without a thunderstorm! What could it be??

My almost 3 year old daredevil son broke his hand in his last escapade. I found the x-ray rather cute, and interesting... you can see how his bones are forming. He learned not to jump from high places, and I learned all about bone age...

The demise of Shinui party in the last Israeli parliamentary elections (March 2006), made me realize that Shas and Shinui should probably follow the Lotka-Volterra equation. As I explain below, the problems are not totally equivalent for several reasons. Nonetheless, many of the L-V elements exist in the Shas/Shinui pray/predator system...

After quite a long while, during which I planned developing such a site, sciencebits.com has gone online. The "raison d'être" behind this site consists of several motives...