Related papers: Le Soleil se l\`evera-t-il demain ?
The one-sided P-value has a long history stretching at least as far back as Laplace (1812) but has in recent times been mostly supplanted by the two-sided P-value. We present justification for a bijective relationship between the one-sided…
It has previously been suggested that the rate of exoplanet discovery, doubling roughly every 39 months, is indicative of a runaway increase in the number of exoplanets in our galaxy. In this paper, we posit that - due to the finite nature…
In a classic 1982 paper in this journal, Jean Meeus used a statistical approach for finding the mean frequency of a total and an annular eclipse of the Sun at a given place on the surface of the Earth. In this current paper we tackle the…
The Sun has been observed through a telescope for four centuries. However, its study made a prodigious leap at the end of the nineteenth century with the appearance of photography and spectroscopy, then at the beginning of the following…
We have shown previously (Bobylev et al 2011) that some of the stars in the Solar neighborhood today may have originated in the same star cluster as the Sun, and could thus be called Solar Siblings. In this work we investigate the…
The equation of time is fundamental for calculating the rising and setting times of the Sun. The concepts of sidereal and solar day and locak noon, we show how the length of the day depends on solar declination and Earth's orbit position,…
One of the presuppositions of science since the times of Galileo, Newton, Laplace, and Descartes has been the predictability of the world. This idea has strongly influenced scientific and technological models. However, in recent decades,…
Astronomy is an observationally-led subject where chance discoveries play an important role. A whole range of such discoveries is continually made, from the trivial to the highly significant. What is generally needed is for luck to strike…
Clinicians and scientists have traditionally focussed on whether their findings will be replicated and are very familiar with the concept. The probability that a replication study yields an effect with the same sign, or the same statistical…
The recent paucity of sunspots and the delay in the expected start of Solar Cycle 24 have drawn attention to the challenges involved in predicting solar activity. Traditional models of the solar cycle usually require information about the…
In this lengthy letter, we wanted to discuss the concept of climate based on definitions established for over a century and direct observations that we have been collecting for more than a century as well. To do this, we present and discuss…
In this work, we present an extensive review and detailed analysis of sunspot measurements, drawings, and engravings made by John Flamsteed and, mainly, by Philippe de La Hire during the Maunder minimum. All available information and…
One of the most interesting unsolved questions in science today is the question of life on other planets. At the present time it is safe to say that we do not have much of an idea as to whether life is common or exceedingly rare in the…
The unexpected development of cycle 24 emphasizes the need for a better way to model future solar activity. In this article, we analyze the accumulation of spotless days during individual cycles from 1798-2010. The analysis shows that…
This historical essay describes the struggle to understand how the sun shines. The story begins with the disagreement between Kelvin and Darwin over the age of the sun in the middle of the 19th century and continues through the revelations…
Tests, independent of any solar model, can be made of whether solar neutrino experiments are consistent with the minimal Standard Model (stable, massless neutrinos). If the experimental uncertainties are correctly estimated and the sun is…
For an odd prime $p$ and integers $d, k, m$ with gcd$(p,d)=1$ and $2\leq k\leq \frac{p-1}{2}$, we consider the determinant \begin{equation*} S_{m,k}(d,p) = \left|(\alpha_i - \alpha_j)^m\right|_{1 \leq i,j \leq \frac{p-1}{k}},…
If one asked some friends where on the horizon they should expect to see the sunrise, half of the answers would be "in the east". Of course, something analogous would happen with the sunset and the west. However, sunrise and sunset…
The radiation pressure exerted by incoherent light on diverse surfaces is examined. The thermodynamic rule, first given by Carnot in 1824, describes the limitation to the amount of free energy that can be obtained from a source of thermal…
We propose two simple probability models to compute the probability of an influenza pandemic. Under a random walk model the probability that all pandemics between times 0 and 300 occur by time 150 is 1/2. Under a Poisson model with mean…