math in science
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Stars and Proper Motion
Recognize this constellation? Well, at the time stamp of about 2000 AD (CE), I think you will. It’s one of the most famous constellations in the night sky. Well, technically, it’s not a constellation at all. It’s an asterism — a…
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Distances Between Stars
When you look up into the sky on a clear night away from the glare of the city, you see trillions upon trillions of stars. Thousands of years ago, the classical astronomers saw the same thing you do today — except…
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How Orbits Work
Since Aristotle’s time over 2000 years ago, we have accepted that the moon orbits the Earth. We didn’t always know why, and we didn’t always accept this for the right reasons. We used to assume that it happened just because…
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From Classical Beginnings
The universe as we know it was born out of chaos. We have a pretty good idea of the scale of our universe and how it began — as an infinitely dense point of matter that blew apart in what…
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The Saros Cycle
Would it surprise you to hear the solar eclipses repeat? Now, I know we can’t go back in time to see past eclipses, and once the date of an eclipse — say, March 7, 1970 — has passed, that date…
