The Earth is not the center field of the world
We’ve had more than 400 years to get used to the theme, but it’s still a little unsettling. Anybody can apparently see that the Sun and stars rise in the east, sweep up across the sky and set in the west; the Earth feels static and stationary. When Copernicus suggested that the Earth and other planets instead orbit the Sun,
… his contemporaries discovered his massive orderly leap “patently absurd,” says Owen Gingerich of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “It would take various generations to sink in. Very few scholars saw it as a real verbal description of the universe.”
Galileo got more sorrow for the estimate than Copernicus did. He used a telescope to provide evidence for the heliocentric theory, and some of his contemporaries were so distressed by what the new invention unveiled—craters on a purportedly absolutely spherical moon, other moons circling Jupiter—that they refused to look by the device. More serious than defying common sense, though, was Galileo’s defiance of the Catholic Church. Scripture said that the Sun revolved around the Earth, and the Holy Office of the Inquisition found Galileo guilty of heresy for saying otherwise.
Galileo got more sorrow for the estimate than Copernicus did. He used a telescope to provide evidence for the heliocentric theory, and some of his contemporaries were so distressed by what the new invention unveiled—craters on a purportedly absolutely spherical moon, other moons circling Jupiter—that they refused to look by the device. More serious than defying common sense, though, was Galileo’s defiance of the Catholic Church. Scripture said that the Sun revolved around the Earth, and the Holy Office of the Inquisition found Galileo guilty of heresy for saying otherwise.
Things that taste fine are bad for you.
In 1948, the Framingham Heart Study listed more than 5,000 residents of Framingham, Massachusetts, to take part in a long-run study of risk factors for heart disease. (Very long term—the study is now enrolling the grandchildren of the original volunteers.) It and subsequent ambitious and painstaking epidemiological analyses have shown that one’s danger of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, certain kinds of cancer and other unhealthinesses additions in a dose-dependent mode upon exposure to pleasant-tasting food. Steak, salty French fries, eggs Benedict, triple-fudge brownies with whipped cream—turns out they’re killers. Sure, some tasty things are healthy—blueberries, snow peas, nuts and maybe even (oh, please) red wine. But on balance, human taste predilections acquired during times of scarcity, when it made sense for our hunter-gatherer ancestors to gorge on as much salt and fat and sugar as possible. In the age of Hostess pies and sedentary lifestyles, those cravings aren’t so adaptative.
E=mc²
Einstein’s notable equation is surely one of the most brilliant and beautiful scientific discoveries—but it’s also one of the most upsetting. The ability explained by the equation really lies in the c², or the speed of light (186,282 miles per second) times itself, which equals 34,700,983,524. When that’s your multiplier factor, you don’t need much mass—a smidgen of plutonium is enough—to create enough energy to destruct a city.
Einstein’s notable equation is surely one of the most brilliant and beautiful scientific discoveries—but it’s also one of the most upsetting. The ability explained by the equation really lies in the c², or the speed of light (186,282 miles per second) times itself, which equals 34,700,983,524. When that’s your multiplier factor, you don’t need much mass—a smidgen of plutonium is enough—to create enough energy to destruct a city.
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