New paintings and regular art updates.
What have I done today? After getting my results I decided to have a go at the new scientist crossword. Er… Help…. I got quite a lot but what is a US term for a bulrush or reed ace (7)? Or slow motion of earth down a slope (4,5)? I think it’s interesting that a ‘quick’ crossword for scientists is a slow one for me!
My head hurts. I sometimes sneak a look at a crossword clue answers page, but I try not to. Wow, the excitement!
I was just reading an article in the New Scientist on line about the phenomenon of ball lightening. Then I remembered that I visited an old lady as part of my job, twenty years ago. We were having a chat over a cup of tea. She told me about when she was a lot younger. She was in her living room, maybe in the 1950’s? There was a lightening storm outside and she had got her window open as it was a hot day. Suddenly a ball of light floated in through the open window, bounced off the floor and then disappeared again. She had never seen anything like it but thought it might be ball lightening? I didn’t ask her much because I didn’t know what to ask. She went on to say that from then on she always unplugged everything electrical in the house and kept her windows shut in a thunderstorm in case it happened again.
I would love to see something like that. But would it be dangerous and knock out electrical equipment if they came into contact with each other? Strange how memories you’ve never had before can suddenly come back to you.
A Dalek at Froghall a few years ago… That’s another story…
I was reading the New Scientists back page last week and there was a question about time travel. Where would you go to in the past or future? Something along those lines. The answer one person gave is that as the planet moves through space, if you travelled six months forwards or backwards for example, when you rematerialised Earth would be at the other side of its orbit. Difficult unless you are in a vessel with an airlock. They went on to explain that as the sun is also moving through the milky way galaxy, its planets spiral around it in its wake, so where Earth was a year ago is far behind where it is now.
I realised from reading that, that your time machine would have to move in space as well as time. In something like the T. A. R. D. I. S. This is a time machine in the Sci fi series Dr Who. It means “Time and relative dimensions in space”. In other words it can travel in space as well as time.
Considering the show was first broadcast in the 1960’s that’s pretty clever. Working out you need to be able to find the Earth’s coordinates in time and space. Mind you they were closer in time to Einstein so they might have had more of an idea about it than we do…..
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Mallaband-Brown