The NYT piece July 24, 2007
Posted by dorigo in internet, news, physics, science.8 comments
Dennis Overbye wrote today for the New York Times an accurate piece on the searches going on at the Tevatron for Higgs bosons, and the atmosphere in the laboratory where the two experiments, CDF and D0, are performing the analysis of the data. I was quoted several times in the article, and the link to this site contained in the NYT page is causing a lot of extra traffic here.
I imagine many of the less search-inclined readers will find a link to my original post on the Higgs rumor of last month useful… On the other hand, I think the post in itself is not too useful. I humbly apologize and offer readers the chance to give a look at the page “Higgs search” on the tab above. Or see this summary of the affair.
A small google earth enigma July 24, 2007
Posted by dorigo in computers, games, internet, travel.27 comments
I was lazily playing with Google Earth this morning, when I discovered something weird. If you go to the Frankfurt airport vicinities, at coordinates 50°03′04″N, 8°36′43″ E, you will see a Lufthansa A340 airbus taking off eastward, as in the picture below.
As you can see, there are three separate images of the plane, separated by about 630 meters. That means that the pictures composing the frame have been taken at 6 second intervals, if we assume a take-off speed of about 360 km/h (I haven’t checked, but it is the right order of magnitude). Now, the first riddle is about the shadows. If one looks closely, one understands that the pictures were taken at about noon, with the sun projecting shadows of buildings, cars, and road signs northward - at least, that is what happens to all objects in the picture (N is on the left in the picture above), save the plane! The A340 appears to project shadows westwards instead. How is it possible ?
Another riddle concerns the cars on the highway. It appears that there are only two images for them. For instance, look at the following four vehicles in the picture below: a red car, a white van, a short yellow truck, and a long white truck.
I have looked on all the highways nearby, and I could only find pairs of vehicles - but the planes are three. Maybe I did not look close enough ? What is your explanation ?
