I was recently looking up some facts about physics, as I often do to ensure that my statements are correct. Physics is filled with many non-intuitive facts, and I like to double-check what I understand. I came across a peculiar statement from a Google search. It said:
The only basic SI unit that is a vector is the meter. All others are scalars. Derived quantities can be vector or scalar, but every vector quantity must involve meters in its definition and unit.
Continue readingI am getting annoyed at some YouTube authors who create sensationalist thumbnails telling me that someone – or something – has “broken the Internet” or “Broken Science.” Really?
Continue readingOn a morning in January of 2007, the famed violinist Joshua Bell took up a spot in a Metro station in Washington, DC. He played Classical music on his $3.5 million violin. He played for about forty minutes. Few people stopped to listen. A small number dropped some money into his violin case. Most people kept walking.
This was a tough election. I didn’t know who to vote for. Normally I favor the Democrats, with liberal policies, welfare, food stamps, universal health care and living spaces, that sort of thing. But my God, did the Democrats go fucking insane.
Continue readingI get a little uneasy when the issue of good and evil arises. It is often unclear what is good or evil. There can be many reasons why something that appears evil is actually good, and vice versa. But there are also some actions that are just evil.
Continue readingI have often heard the claim that Islam is the religion of peace. I was told that when Muslims blew themselves up and killed a bunch of people, these were just extremists; that Islam didn’t support such behavior. In fact, we gave them a special name – Islamists. Not Muslims, Islamists.
Continue readingThere has been a sudden and marked increase in activity by Israel against Hezbollah. Some people are decrying this “escalation.” I think they’re naive and mistaken at best; They may just be lying.
Continue readingThe Internet has become humanity’s most widespread source of information. Almost anyone can get access to the Internet, get information about almost any subject. I can find thousands of sources of information. Some of these are of poor quality – the information is incomplete, biased, or even false. However, with care it is possible to avoid most of this junk.
Today (9/17/24), a few thousand pagers exploded more or less simultaneously in Lebanon. The pagers were used by members of Hezbollah. Pagers are more secure than mobile phones, which is why these members were using them.
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The Importance of Units
It is difficult to overstate the importance of using units in physics. Back in the day, my physics teacher would take off half the points in a question, if we forgot to include units. A question might be, convert 100°C to degrees F. If you said 212, you’d only get half points. Even if you said 212°, you’d be penalized. The correct answer would be 212°F.
You might think that this is just silly nit-picking. I mean, of course it’s 212°F; what else would it be? Why all the fuss?
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