Related papers: Can the earth be flat ? A physical oceanographer's…
No surface is perfectly planar at all scales. The notion of flatness of a surface therefore depends on the size of the probe used to observe it. As a consequence rough interfaces are abundant in nature. Here the old, but still active field…
We report direct evidence of a secondary flow excited by the Earth rotation in a water-filled spherical container spinning at constant rotation rate. This so-called {\it tilt-over flow} essentially consists in a rotation around an axis…
In the expanding Earth framework it is possible to find additional phenomena that could contribute in a proper way to the water balance and general tectonic eustatism involved in the sea lever rising. Recent compilations seems to leave…
Over the past two decades, enormous advances in the detection of exoplanets have taken place. Currently, we have discovered hundreds of earth-sized planets, several of them within the habitable zone of their star. In the coming years, the…
We study here what it means for the Universe to be nearly flat, as opposed to exactly flat. We give three definitions of nearly flat, based on density, geometry and dynamics; all three definitions are equivalent and depend on a single…
The Earth's surface is composed of a staggering diversity of particulate-fluid mixtures: dry to wet, dilute to dense, colloidal to granular, and attractive to repulsive particles. This material variety is matched by the range of relevant…
Neutral surfaces, along which most of the mixing in the ocean occurs, are notoriously difficult objects: they do not exist as well-defined surfaces, and as such can only be approximated. In a hypothetical ocean where neutral surfaces are…
In this paper, we propose the replication of scientific experiments, with the participation of the general public, as one of the possible strategies to confront science deniers. Using the social media of the Federal University of Lavras…
The sphericity of the form of the Earth was questioned around the year 1687, primarily, by Isaac Newton who deduced from his theory of universal gravitation that the Earth has the form of a spheroid flattened at the poles and elongated at…
A balanced ratio of ocean to land is believed to be essential for an Earth-like biosphere and one may conjecture that plate-tectonics planets should be similar in geological properties. After all, the volume of continental crust evolves…
We take our world to be an objective reality, but is it? The assumption that the physical world exists in and of itself has struggled to assimilate the findings of modern physics for some time now. For example, an objective space and time…
Is the Universe (a spatial section thereof) finite or infinite? Knowing the global geometry of a Friedmann-Lema\^{\i}tre (FL) universe requires knowing both its curvature and its topology. A flat or hyperbolic (``open'') FL universe is {\em…
It is sometimes assumed that the rapidity of biogenesis on Earth suggests that life is common in the Universe. Here we critically examine the assumptions inherent in this if-life-evolved-rapidly-life-must-be-common argument. We use the…
Earth's relief is approximately self-affine, meaning a zoom-in on a small region looks statistically similar to a large region upon rescaling. Fractional Brownian surfaces give an idealized self-affine model of Earth's relief with one…
Earth is the only planet known to harbor life and, as a result, the search for habitable and inhabited planets beyond the Solar System commonly focuses on analogs to our planet. However, Earth's atmosphere and surface environment have…
This paper is crucial part of an experiment aimed to investigate whether Social Networks can be of help for Astrophysics. In the present case, in helping to eliminate the deep-routed wrong misconception of Flat Rotation Curves of Spiral…
Some recent papers proposed the use of the satellite images of Google Earth in teaching physics, in particular to see some behaviours of waves. Reflection, refraction, diffraction and interference are easy to be found in these satellite…
It is a quite common view among people, that are not aware of the developments in modern physics, that it is part of human nature to substitute religious faith in places where there is no knowledge. Therefore, an increase in knowledge would…
In a room with five cosmologists there there may easily be ten theories of cosmogenesis. Cosmogenesis is a popular topic for speculation because it is philosophically deep and because such speculations are unlikely to be proven wrong in the…
Despite the extraordinary successes the two great bastions of $20^{th}$ century science (Quantum Theory and General Relativity) are troubled with serious conceptual and mathematical difficulties. As a result, further growth of fundamental…