Asteroids Named After Fictional Characters

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2e/433eros.jpg

Asteroids named after fictional characters:

  • 2309 Mr. Spock
  • 5048 Moriarty
  • 5049 Sherlock
  • 5050 Doctorwatson
  • 6042 Cheshirecat
  • 6735 Madhatter
  • 6736 Marchare
  • 7470 Jabberwock
  • 7980 Bandersnatch
  • 9007 James Bond
  • 18610 Arthurdent

Strangely, 2309 Mr. Spock caused an uproar when the asteroid’s discoverer, James Gibson, revealed that he’d actually named it after his cat (he called the cat Spock because it was “imperturbable, logical, intelligent, and had pointed ears”). The International Astronomical Union officially discouraged any more pet animal names, but people are still fine — asteroids have been named after Carlos Santana, Mister Rogers, all four Beatles and all six members of Monty Python.

Aerogel

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aerogelbrick.jpg

Yup, that’s a brick.

It’s sitting on Aerogel, “frozen smoke,” the world’s lowest-density solid. The stuff is 99.8% air but can support 2,000 times its own weight, and it holds 15 entries in the Guinness Book of Records.

Most amazingly, it was first created in 1931.

“I Am Alone Without You”

A letter written by physicist Richard Feynman to his dead wife, Arline, Oct. 17, 1946:

D’Arline,

I adore you, sweetheart … It is such a terribly long time since I last wrote to you – almost two years but I know you’ll excuse me because you understand how I am, stubborn and realistic; and I thought there was no sense to writing. But now I know my darling wife that it is right to do what I have delayed in doing, and what I have done so much in the past. I want to tell you I love you.

I find it hard to understand in my mind what it means to love you after you are dead – but I still want to comfort and take care of you – and I want you to love me and care for me. I want to have problems to discuss with you – I want to do little projects with you. I never thought until just now that we can do that. What should we do. We started to learn to make clothes together – or learn Chinese – or getting a movie projector.

Can’t I do something now? No. I am alone without you and you were the “idea-woman” and general instigator of all our wild adventures. When you were sick you worried because you could not give me something that you wanted to and thought I needed. You needn’t have worried.

Just as I told you then there was no real need because I loved you in so many ways so much. And now it is clearly even more true – you can give me nothing now yet I love you so that you stand in my way of loving anyone else – but I want to stand there.

I’ll bet that you are surprised that I don’t even have a girlfriend after two years. But you can’t help it, darling, nor can I – I don’t understand it, for I have met many girls … and I don’t want to remain alone – but in two or three meetings they all seem ashes. You only are left to me. You are real.

My darling wife, I do adore you. I love my wife. My wife is dead,

Rich.

At the end he wrote, “PS Please excuse my not mailing this – but I don’t know your new address.”

Yed, Bleen, Grue

Suppose I show you an emerald and ask whether it’s green or grue. It’s “grue” if it’s green today but will turn blue next Halloween.

Which is it? That’s the “new problem of induction,” according to philosopher of science Nelson Goodman. It’s a big problem: Scientists basically assume that the universe behaves consistently over time, but there’s no logical reason to expect this.

A more immediate usage: “Yed” is the color of a traffic signal when the last legal driver manages to get through the intersection. “The existence of the color yed is hotly debated in philosophy, and opposing viewpoints are often taken by traffic cops and vehicle operators.”