What if…?

Web cartoonist Randall Munroe answers simple what-if questions (“what if you hit a baseball moving at the speed of light?”) using math, physics, logic and deadpan humor. In this charming talk, a reader’s question about Google’s data warehouse leads Munroe down a circuitous path to a hilariously over-detailed answer — in which, shhh, you might…

Vantablack is the new black

A British company, called “Surrey NanoSystems” has produced a strange material so black that it absorbs all but 0.035 per cent of visual light, setting a new world record. This “super black” material is named as “vantablack” by combining first letters of the term “Vertically Aligned NanoTube Arrays”.

Is the universe dead or alive?

Our view of the universe as either dead or alive creates the context within which we understand who we are and where we are going. Where a dead-universe perspective generates alienation, environmental destruction, and despair, a living-universe perspective generates feelings of communion, stewardship, and the promise of a higher pathway for humanity.