Can any expert astrophysicists here comment on what bounds on galactic electric fields are known or well-supported? There has to be some observations which limit the possibilities. My gut-feeling is that such large-scale fields would be fairly obvious if they existed, but maybe not. What are the real observational…

This isn't related to Einstein's (or anyone else's) attempts to formulate a unified field theory. He's merely suggesting that the observable effects attributed to so-called "dark matter" might have a more prosaic explanation within classical electrodynamics. He's basically saying that the observations that have been…

Yeah, that was my first thought. I expect it will be the next regeneration.

Good ol' SPIRES...

I couldn't guess at the percentages but a lot of people don't know about plasma. Anyway, I'm thinking of the classical phases as being those which are composed of atoms and molecules, i.e. microscopically electrically neutral. Plasma is basically a gas of charged particles.

When I was still in research physics, I always had a little bit of a bump in the road in explaining my work to people.

This article's mention of Sorayama, followed up by a little Googling, finally revealed to me the joke in that Venture Brothers ep.

She's believable as an Amazonian.

Yeah, I understand the concept of visual resolution.

I felt this show was mostly carried by the character of Coulson until the Hydra takeover late in Season 1. It's certainly picked up in terms of story-telling a lot since then.

My first thought as well. Crazy coincidence, perhaps. But the narrator specifically says this was noticed in the HD version which presumably was released much later.

I have mixed feelings about this kind of official companion material. While I love to geek out about the source material, I also kind of feel that official background material put together by the author should just be integrated into the goddamn novels. It feels like something of a narrative failure that the author…

Having just recently been exposed to the turbo encabulator for the first time, I had to star this.

How do all those points about not needing to replace your iPad not apply to the laptop or phone? I have an iPhone 4 — not even 4S! — and it's fine. The only issue I'm getting is Apple wanting to deprecate it. My MacBook Pro is from 2010. I got a new one from work last year and it was nicer, but not enough that I…

+1 for singular "they." It is in common usage already, grammarians, and is sorely needed. Constructions like "he or she" are terribly awkward.

Great article!

That's basically true of any permanent magnet. A magnet on your fridge is supporting its own weight (i.e. the entire pull of earth's gravity upon it) with its magnetic attraction to the metal.

Very nice article. It's true that there are all sorts of conceptual and theoretical problems with posing a theory of gravitons. But all that is separate from the experimental question of why they are hard to observe. That is a result simply of the weakness of the gravitational interaction. It takes an entire planet…

I pity you and any cup of coffee you have on your desk.

Yeah, as soon as I thought about getting one of those, I realized it was obsolete already.