Out to try out

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41040410824435516762011-09-25T00:33:45.171+02:00Out to try out "Not knowing is much more interesting than believing an answer which might be wrong." Richard Feynman.Eynar Oxartumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06754372580081703713noreply@blogger.comBlogger151100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4104041082443551676.post-91791683107482560812011-03-13T21:30:00.004+01:002011-03-15T10:10:38.194+01:00Snail reproduction and mollusc birth control

One of my hobbies is snail-rearing. I started this when living in Dublin. In spring/summer 2007 it was so amazingly rainy (even for Irish people!) that thousands of snails could be seen in the gardens. It must have been really good news for birds.I started to be interested in these animals, as I did not see many of them in dry, hot and full-of-concrete Madrid. When I left Ireland I brought three

Eynar Oxartumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06754372580081703713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4104041082443551676.post-1771465748473852142011-02-20T20:00:00.000+01:002011-02-20T20:14:01.065+01:00How to compare heat capacities in your grandmother's kitchen

Performing simple sicentific measurements (such as getting the heat capacity of a given material) having proper scientific equipment is an easy, probably boring task.However, things get funnier when our means are limited. For example, what about calculating and comparing the heat capacity of organic tissue and inorganic matter using only things you would find in any kitchen, such as your

Eynar Oxartumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06754372580081703713noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4104041082443551676.post-268263215637300622010-03-26T02:10:00.001+01:002011-01-28T00:49:48.671+01:00Airport game

Waiting for a flight can be really boring, especially when we have to be there two hours earlier. If you are at an international airport, there is a very simple game you can play using the scientific method for non-scientific related activities.The scientific method is a powerful and simple algorithm to separate what works from what does not work. There is a series of steps, and if you follow

Eynar Oxartumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06754372580081703713noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4104041082443551676.post-86823774677789448832009-08-28T15:15:00.009+02:002009-08-28T17:10:47.115+02:00Baby bird communication (II)

This is Piolín:(Piolín is pronounced [piɔˈli:n], and it is the Spanish name of Tweety)My niece found Piolín in June, saving him (or her... I have here the same problem I had with Patxi) from certain death, as he fell from his nest on a very hot day (under the Sun it must have been around 40ºC), lying on one side of a road. You can see a small wound on his back, probably caused by the fall.As I

Eynar Oxartumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06754372580081703713noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4104041082443551676.post-23885054616755593852009-08-21T01:38:00.005+02:002009-08-21T01:47:10.547+02:00Baby bird communication (I)

Last month my sister brought a baby duck to my mother. Its name is Patxi (pronounced [patʃi]), and apparently what he (or she, but I will say he until we know what he/she is) loves most in this world is... tomatoes.He probably thinks he is a human, as he has always been among humans. So, when there are no humans around he starts feeling scared of this dangerous world, and asks for help. In his

Eynar Oxartumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06754372580081703713noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4104041082443551676.post-69028198309590592762009-05-01T15:09:00.003+02:002009-05-01T15:22:04.538+02:00Eating uncooked lentils (postanalysis considerations)

If you think the previous experiment about eating uncooked lentils lacks of an essential condition every real experiment (either important or unsignificant) should have... In all likelihood you are right!Everybody who agrees with the previous statement is invited to leave a comment in this entry telling us what was wrong in that experiment and why should it be indisputably repeated to be accepted

Eynar Oxartumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06754372580081703713noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4104041082443551676.post-43178570447836434142009-04-23T09:03:00.000+02:002009-04-24T02:50:29.657+02:00Eating uncooked lentils

I made an interesting experiment last year, but I never spoke about it. There is a lot of people who enjoy eating sprouts of different seeds. I was used to see in the local store soya bean sprouts and I sometimes ate them.OK, but eating once more soya bean sprouts wouldn't be quite an interesnting experiment. I needed something different. So, let us try lentil sprouts. Huh? Am I forgetting

Eynar Oxartumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06754372580081703713noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4104041082443551676.post-68654813415239430232009-02-18T12:15:00.005+01:002009-02-18T13:51:37.934+01:00The International Space Station with the naked eye

Some years ago, translating into Spanish the book Out of the Blue, by John Naylor, I learned it was possible seeing artificial satellites (see section 13.3 of the book). Well, actually I didn't learn it, I just believed in what the author said. It's funny, but the author was encouraging us all the time to be less bookish and try to learn things through our own experience, but I didn't try this.I

Eynar Oxartumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06754372580081703713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4104041082443551676.post-2133950528490537392008-09-14T03:13:00.002+02:002009-01-13T11:19:24.486+01:00Tomatoes with no light

We are growing tomatoes for the first time. It is very interesting looking after new living beings at home. Our salads are also a bit more interesting now. For some reason I started wondering what would happen if tomatoes get no light. Are they red because of light? What about the leaves? Checking the local library or wikipedia you can get fast answers. I am not an expert, but after all I am not

Eynar Oxartumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06754372580081703713noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4104041082443551676.post-77380982003911965742008-08-24T17:43:00.020+02:002009-01-13T03:02:31.948+01:00Games about the Olympic Games

The 2008 Olympic Games are over, and as expected, China has been the country with most gold medals (but curiously, not the country with most medals!). It might be easy to think that statistically a country with over 1.3 billion people has to have at least some good athlets. There seems to be a not surprising correlation between population and results in the Olympics.The idea: Good, we have the

Eynar Oxartumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06754372580081703713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4104041082443551676.post-30471126158512112282008-08-10T16:11:00.008+02:002009-01-13T02:54:10.441+01:00Between twelve and five

Two months ago or so I spent some hours at the Hodges Figgis (a bookshop I love, which is on Dawson Street, here in Dublin). I love to go to the second floor and leaf through the books of the scientific section. It is the closest thing to the Casa del Libro in Madrid. There I found a book, The Maths Gene, by Keith Devlin. On page 19 (of that edition) there is the following test:You have to answer

Eynar Oxartumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06754372580081703713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4104041082443551676.post-46146031762260237052008-07-29T15:43:00.011+02:002008-09-14T01:34:50.994+02:00Smelling or tasting? (ii)

So, last week end I made again the oil experiment with the help of a friend. It was very funny, sort of Coca-Cola/Pepsi contests.The Idea: as in the previous experiment, the idea/belief to test is the following:We cannot tell the difference between the taste of olive oil and sunflower oil just tasting them (so, closing our eyes and blocking our nose).The material: Two cups, olive oil, sunflower

Eynar Oxartumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06754372580081703713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4104041082443551676.post-8046428044671421712008-07-27T05:11:00.002+02:002009-01-13T02:47:31.390+01:00Smelling or tasting?

I have seen I can summarize my philosophy about these small experiments in just one word: EMOTION, which meansEnjoy = fun!Measurements = objectivityObservationThought = we need a (specific) idea/belief to testIncentive = we need a motivationOriginality = creativityand the four Noes:No great, revolutionary ideas requiredNot a lot of time requiredNot a lot of material requiredNot a lot of knowledge

Eynar Oxartumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06754372580081703713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4104041082443551676.post-63166285398781294512008-05-24T17:09:00.003+02:002009-01-13T02:52:37.612+01:00Results from the first experiment

Some 12 days ago I talked about what experiments are. Obvously I was not speaking about the sort of experiments that are done in a laboratory, but about the experimenting mind. My goal is having a more experimental behaviour, to be keen to learn things by myself, and not just from books. I want to listen directly to nature, and not just to the people who read about somebody who heard about the

Eynar Oxartumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06754372580081703713noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4104041082443551676.post-23958969920428656552008-05-12T16:08:00.009+02:002009-01-13T02:52:08.568+01:00What are experiments?

Hello world,this is the first post of my first blog. I just would like to express how much I love understanding Nature, and the way I reach this understanding. All understanding is based on experiments. Without experiments, we would believe in things which are not true, and we wouldn't be able to predict how the Nature will react to anything.I really enjoy doing experiments, but I don't do as

Eynar Oxartumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06754372580081703713noreply@blogger.com2