plautus's profile

Belief in stellar fusion has plagued science for nearly a century. The idea that stars are powered internally by fusion was first proposed by Arthur Eddington. Eddington rejected without consideration the idea that the power source for stars might be external. Assuming that the sun had existed more or less in its present state for billions of years, Eddington concluded that the sun's power source must be fusion. Prior that that there had been several other hypotheses. It had even been suggest...

Two snakes came across each other in the seedy underbelly of the jungle. Both were constrictors, and both had been bitten trying to squeeze other snakes. Each carried different poison in its veins. When the two snakes met, they got along splendidly. Neither one bit, and neither seemed poisonous. They spent most of each day looking for small furry things to strangle and eat. When they weren't feeding or sleeping they struggled each to twine around the other to cease the itch of growth. The sna...

The Earth's magnetic field is enormous. Compared to any magnetic fields generated by humans, it is truly collossal, almost unimaginably huge. The mechanism described by most researchers is the "geodynamo" idea. This idea states that heat inside the Earth churns things until they generate a magnetic field. This is a principle that apparently has no practical applications, since humans have never been able to exploit it to do work, but we have generated magnetic fields using electricity. Anothe...

I'm the tallest, I should be in charge.

How much less like your own face could your neighbor's face taste?