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A perplexing problem in understanding physical reality is why the universe seems comprehensible, and correspondingly why there should exist physical systems capable of comprehending it. In this essay I explore the possibility that rather…
Although it is generally believed that the solar photosphere is not magnetically force-free owning to its high plasma $\beta$, the estimations of force-freeness using observed magnetograms have produced disputable results. Some studies…
A contemporary physicist would be hard put to agree entirely with the author of a 1959 textbook on quantum mechanics, who wrote: "A second simple, one-dimensional system, somewhat divorced from reality but illustrative of the principles of…
Recent observations seem to indicate that we live in a universe whose spatial sections are nearly or exactly flat. Motivated by this we study the problem of observational detection of the topology of universes with flat spatial sections. We…
It has been known for some time that the usual inference drawn from the observed near-flatness of the large-scale Universe - namely the existence of a cosmological "flatness problem", which is then taken as a partial, but key motivation for…
A flat Universe model supported by recent observations has 18 possible choices for its overall topology. To detect or exclude these possibilities is one of the most important tasks in modern cosmology, but it has been very difficult for…
Global climate change is one of main concern of modern society. To estimate this change usually one estimates the global mean temperature. Measuring and calculating the Earth's average temperature are multi-steps complex processes which…
The carbon footprint of astronomical research is an increasingly topical issue. From a comparison of existing literature, we infer an annual per capita carbon footprint of several tens of tonnes of CO$_2$ equivalents for an average person…
Mechanics texts tell us that a particle in a bound orbit under gravitational central force moves on an ellipse, while introductory physics texts approximate the earth as flat, and tell us that the particle moves in a parabola. The…
Soft or Deformable Plate Tectonics in the sphere must follow geometric rules inferred from the orthographic projection. An analytic equivalent of this geometry can be derived by the application of Potential Field Methods in the case of…
Mars shares many similarities and characteristics to Earth including various geological features and planetary structure. The remarkable bimodal distribution of elevations in both planets is one of the most striking global features…
High school science classrooms across the United States are answering calls to make computation a part of science learning. The problem is that there is little known about the barriers to learning that computation might bring to a science…
Venus may have had both an Earth-like climate as well as extensive water oceans and active (or incipient) plate tectonics for an extended interval of its history. The topographical power spectrum of Venus provides important clues to the…
National studies conducted over many years show that, while most Americans are interested in science and support federal funding of scientific research, the scientific literacy of the public is very low. Why this situation exists and who is…
The earth's surface heat flux is 46$\pm$3 TW (terrawatts, 10$^{12}$ watts). Although many assume we know the earth's abundance and distribution of radioactive heat producing elements (i.e., U, Th, and K), estimates for the mantle's heat…
Global temperature is a fundamental climate metric highly correlated with sea level, which implies that keeping shorelines near their present location requires keeping global temperature within or close to its preindustrial Holocene range.…
Earth will become uninhabitable within 2-3 Gyr as a result of the moving boundaries of the habitable zone caused by the increasing luminosity of the Sun. Predictions about the future of habitable conditions on Earth include a decline in…
Education, science, in fact the whole society, extensively use images. Between us and the world are the visual displays. Screens, small and large, individual or not, are everywhere. Images are increasingly the 2D substrate of our virtual…
Exploring planetary systems similar to our solar system can provide a means to explore a large range of possibly temperate climates on Earth-like worlds. Rather than run hundreds of simulations with different eccentricities at fixed…
A precise measurement of the curvature of the Universe is of primeval importance for cosmology since it could not only confirm the paradigm of primordial inflation but also help in discriminating between different early Universe scenarios.…