This is the first time I have observed an earthquake moving the surface of the Earth around in real time .… they claim it is the first time it has been captured on video.
Well this is something new. The news today is full of reports of the severe damage in Myanmar where a 7.7 magnitude earthquake destroyed many buildings including some brand-new construction projects…
Every mechanical engineer should know what the Antikythera Mechanism was. This video is hard core mechanical engineering…
Enjoy this new YouTube video explaining the Idea of enhancing pyramid security by leaving a newly constructed pyramid (magnificent outside and inside and a great mystery that common folk would love to visit) wide open to the devout public…
What is this Mystery Tool…? My first thought was that it was just an older version of the classic post-hole digger that I used for years… Boy, was I wrong.
The Chinese spy balloon discovered drifting over the USA and shot down as it reached the Atlantic is being recovered by Navy divers and will be analyzed by the authorities…
Barnes Engineering’s innovation of a method to make a surface really black was very classified at the time. Now, a commercial product working with the same approach can make the surface of any object into a “light trap.” It reflects practically nothing. I read that a Vantablack-coated surface really looks like a void, a black hole, with no hint of its shape or texture, or color remaining. People say it is like looking through the object at a totally black background.
A new report suggests that the Inflation Reduction Act could be even bigger than Congress thinks…
This video makes the “speculative” case that Musk’s Boring Company is also a technological "stepping stone" to fulfill his mission of getting humans to Mars and making us a multi-planet species.
Given hints from the newspaper articles about this fire and general knowledge of the “Potato Factory”, I predict this will be a long fire….
Funny, strange, and pretty hard-to-believe stories about testing of Jet Engines and Atlas Rockets…
You asked about static electricity ... probably because you have seen or experienced it many times.
Regarding the photo technique of making something look like a small replica of itself ... here is a picture of the type of camera that is used ... a bellows-box camera.
I saw an interview between Elon Musk and a SpaceX blogger in which he expounded on his “Musk's Engineering Philosophy."
A Barnes Earth Sensor was spotted by an eagle-eyed Rory and George on their recent school trip to the Air & Space Museum in DC…
This enormous “machine” is under construction today in France under a multi-decade consortium of nations (including the USA) to develop a totally clean, totally safe source of electrical power to save the planet from global warming….
Here is a tool that allows anyone to see what the eclipse will look like from where ever they happen to be next Monday afternoon….
Motorola, the big leader in the early days of mobile phones (think: brick with a ringer) had a big production facility in Phoenix.
Today, at noon, on the way to Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, the captain announced that we were crossing the spot where the sun was exactly overhead.
The following is worth reading. A very candid, informal report of what it is like to fly a 747 with a Space Shuttle bolted to the top!
When I saw it, I was very skeptical .... thinking this was a fabulous internet fake .... but even SNOPES says it is real.
The F-111 was in full-scale production on a mile long assembly line in Fort Worth when I was monitoring that program in the corporate offices of General Dynamics in NYC.
This video from the New York Times is a very good description of the short life of the Blue Ghost commercial spacecraft which successfully landed on the Moon and conducted a full lunar day’s worth of experiments there. It then signed off by switching itself into “Monument Mode…
After watching our baby eagles for days and days, the old question came up: “Why don't you ever see baby pigeons?"
A pod of dolphins playfully circled the SpaceX Dragon capsule (Freedom) as it floated in the Gulf of Mexico after the successful splashdown of the Crew-9 mission on March 18, 2025
This video is probably more detailed than you want, however, from my search today it is the best presented answer so far as to why SpaceX’s Flight-8 Ship tumbled, exploded and become a massive fireworks display. Earlier, SpaceX's first stage booster had performed flawlessly and was left safely hanging there in the "chop sticks" on the launch tower, just as planned.
Well, flight #3 of SpaceX's Starship did launch yesterday and did achieve orbital altitude & speed. Everything appeared to work perfectly this time. That, by itself, was a major achievement.
I will be watching as SpaceX Starship launches from Florida. The expectations for tomorrow’s launch are to propel the upper stage Starship into a near orbital position and speed, but not to go fully orbital.
Odysseus Lunar Lander: Part Four … Scott's update and mission summary is a good wrap up of the mission …. so far.
Odysseus Lunar Lander: Part Three… Scott Manley filed this report just after Intuitive Machines announced that the Olysessus had landed successfully on the Moon…
Odysseus Lunar Lander: Part Two…. Well, sadly, the speculation that Odysseus tipped over while landing appears to be correct…
A Chinese company already in the satellite launch business called “iSpace, Inc.” has recently flown a new rocket with many of the design details as a SpaceX Falcon-9 booster. It took off, hovered at low altitude and then landed smoothly on four legs right where it took off from. Impressive!
Earlier I had mentioned that I was waiting for my favorite space blogger, Scot Manley, to tell us what happened to the Japanese Lunar lander. Here it all is. In tremendous detail
There were dozens of video cameras running during the launch of SpaceX’s Starship. These have provided rich engineering data that allows an explanation of why the rocket failed to achieve orbit and had to be destroyed.
No new information here …. Just a better telescopic camera. The Twitter message shows the rocket flying responsibly along …. even with a few engines out.
By now we have all watched SpaceX launch their giant Starship …. Cheered when it cleared the launch tower …worried when it began to wobble …. and sighed when it had to be destroyed. The ship was clearly not flying its planned trajectory and engines were winking out.
Watch Marcus House’s summary of SpaceX activity and plans, concentrating on preparations for the SpaceX StarShip to make its first flight.
People ask: “How good is NASA’s new Webb Space Telescope? Most of the time, the answer given by astronomers and scientists is too complicated…
Every 12 to 18 months, people start to notice those two bright stars next to the Moon. How come they never saw them before?
Check out the Orion capsule when it is farther from Earth than any other manned spacecraft. Quite a Sci-Fi view! NASA’s highlights video from the first 13 days and another showing the return-powered flyby burn, in which the spacecraft will harness the Moon’s gravity and accelerate back toward Earth is surely worth a watch. Seeing the Moon and Earth together is a Sci Fi experience.
The Artemis program was initiated to essentially re-create the capability demonstrated fifty years ago by NASA in the abandoned Apollo mission…
Behold the Artemis launch and on-orbit maneuvers. What a thrill to see NASA back in business with a successful launch of their giant new booster…
This photographer combined photos of the Moon from just before the first encounter with the shadow of the Earth until the last.
Amazing images from the Hubble Telescope reside on this great website that serves up a fresh image every day for your viewing pleasure!
A scientist has created a short video (one and a half minutes) that allows you to slide from a totally Hubble image to a totally Webb image. You can watch a fuzzy dot turn into a very distant spiral galaxy…
Of course, there is always the possibility of a glancing blow … or missing the asteroid altogether. That’s why we do science.
This astonishing video lecture and call for new investors suggests a plausible way to fabricate really big habitats in space. It is like a Ted Talk on steroids.
Ever since I have been a “rocket scientist,” the satellite industry have been trying to find a way to avoid the extremely energy inefficient first stage booster…
This is the NYT article on Computer-Generated Human Faces that I mentioned the other day. Be sure and go into it far enough to get to the controls allowing you to change a face to express emotion. Scary!
This video is probably more detailed than you want, however, from my search today it is the best presented answer so far as to why SpaceX’s Flight-8 Ship tumbled, exploded and become a massive fireworks display. Earlier, SpaceX's first stage booster had performed flawlessly and was left safely hanging there in the "chop sticks" on the launch tower, just as planned.
A Chinese company already in the satellite launch business called “iSpace, Inc.” has recently flown a new rocket with many of the design details as a SpaceX Falcon-9 booster. It took off, hovered at low altitude and then landed smoothly on four legs right where it took off from. Impressive!
Earlier I had mentioned that I was waiting for my favorite space blogger, Scot Manley, to tell us what happened to the Japanese Lunar lander. Here it all is. In tremendous detail
A new report suggests that the Inflation Reduction Act could be even bigger than Congress thinks…
After Elon Musk announced his intentions of being in the robot business in a big way, the internet has been alive with many of the more established robot companies saying “Hey, don’t forget about us…”
I watched the much-buzzed-about demonstration yesterday by Elon Musk of the humanoid robot being developed at Tesla…
Here are my observations on the astonishing development of Musk’s companies, technologies, and products. They are all just stepping stones to the next big thing.
Here is a video that presents a tidal wave of information about steerable phased array technology. I had no hope of understanding it but loved the astonishing technology so beautifully presented
Here’s a TED Talk about the real environmental savings/impact of electric cars electric…
Here are some images that I put together using features of Google Earth that I had not explored before…
This excellent, graphic depiction of the spread of Covid-19 through the American States is a tour-de-force of data presentation.
Well .... maybe not what you'd expect!! To see such a demonstration of both technology and human will really opens your eyes.
This delightful presentation of the movement of ships around the world is well worth studying.
Leo, I promised you that I would send the attached image from Google Earth that Rory and I found while doing a virtual tour of the coast of Maine.
The “Viking Sky” is an exact replica of the “Viking Sea” we sailed on three years ago and just as wonderful.
This incredible virtual tour of the Sistine Chapel was created by Villanova at the request of the Vatican
This is the first time I have observed an earthquake moving the surface of the Earth around in real time .… they claim it is the first time it has been captured on video.
Well this is something new. The news today is full of reports of the severe damage in Myanmar where a 7.7 magnitude earthquake destroyed many buildings including some brand-new construction projects…
Every mechanical engineer should know what the Antikythera Mechanism was. This video is hard core mechanical engineering…
Enjoy this new YouTube video explaining the Idea of enhancing pyramid security by leaving a newly constructed pyramid (magnificent outside and inside and a great mystery that common folk would love to visit) wide open to the devout public…
What is this Mystery Tool…? My first thought was that it was just an older version of the classic post-hole digger that I used for years… Boy, was I wrong.
This video makes the “speculative” case that Musk’s Boring Company is also a technological "stepping stone" to fulfill his mission of getting humans to Mars and making us a multi-planet species.
Funny, strange, and pretty hard-to-believe stories about testing of Jet Engines and Atlas Rockets…
Regarding the photo technique of making something look like a small replica of itself ... here is a picture of the type of camera that is used ... a bellows-box camera.
I saw an interview between Elon Musk and a SpaceX blogger in which he expounded on his “Musk's Engineering Philosophy."
A Barnes Earth Sensor was spotted by an eagle-eyed Rory and George on their recent school trip to the Air & Space Museum in DC…
This enormous “machine” is under construction today in France under a multi-decade consortium of nations (including the USA) to develop a totally clean, totally safe source of electrical power to save the planet from global warming….
Motorola, the big leader in the early days of mobile phones (think: brick with a ringer) had a big production facility in Phoenix.
The following is worth reading. A very candid, informal report of what it is like to fly a 747 with a Space Shuttle bolted to the top!
When I saw it, I was very skeptical .... thinking this was a fabulous internet fake .... but even SNOPES says it is real.
The F-111 was in full-scale production on a mile long assembly line in Fort Worth when I was monitoring that program in the corporate offices of General Dynamics in NYC.
Mark Pratt's brother flew one of these aircraft in Vietnam and sent him this true story.
Here we have a guy with an acetylene torch completely cutting an old ship into pieces that can be hauled away by truck….
All about a bid two years ago to build a monumental civic works architectural project along a dusty, scrappy, nearly abandoned mile and a half of San Jose California’s ugly dry riverbed.
Something completely different.
While browsing Google Earth, I discovered that several bloggers call themselves “Google Earth Explorers.”
Years ago I saw a giant version of this demonstration in the lobby of a physics laboratory at Cal Tech. The spheres were a foot in diameter! ….
Well this is something new. The news today is full of reports of the severe damage in Myanmar where a 7.7 magnitude earthquake destroyed many buildings including some brand-new construction projects…
Returning to Naples after a short summer holiday in Belfast, we encountered a series of mysteries in our apartment…
Twenty years ago, somebody impaled a 60-pound pumpkin 170 feet off the ground on the spire at Cornell University. Nobody knows who did this or how they did it… here’s my response to my Yale roommates after a discussion of this classic prank …
Back at the turn of the century, I was sure that “The New Yorker” magazine would publish my cartoon drawing…
Look closely at this bunch of imposters. Zoom in on the tops and you will see a cool example of defensive mimicry!
Mystery UN-solved! Is it gold or is it black? The theory that the gold dome reflects clear and cloudy sky differently is reinforced by this. But I am at a loss as to how to explain it.
Zalenskyi, knowing the power of communication, changed the county’s “Rules of Appropriate Language” to allow Ukrainian print and broadcast media to openly use the phrase “Russian Warship, go F$CK yourselves.”
Mystery solved! I was unhappy not to have given an expiation of why the dome of St. Paul Orthodox Church here in Naples was shockingly was black….
Cloth from Viking and medieval archaeological sites shows that women literally made the money in the North Atlantic…
Roxanne…. As I was looking at your new home in Google Earth, I noticed that your GPS address is essentially 30 North by 90 West…
This is a very worthwhile compendium of optical illusions with explanations of what is going on in your personal perception of each one….
Here we have a physics professor using a large spandex sheet to illustrate gravitation. It is a real-live simulation, not a CGI rendering
In my Top Secret days with Barnes Engineering, on visits to various government facilities, there was expectedly lots of security. Here’s a tale of my oddest experience …
This is one of the crystals my father collected in Germany at a “dark, filthy, wet mine, with a gift shop." It was prominently displayed on his desk at Barnes Engineering.
I had never seen the wonderful falling-block illusion. The last one, with the mystery of a square disappearing from the triangular area, is much more fun as a GIF.
What a fabulous collection of unnecessary warning signage. You can see the well-intentioned rules that are being blindly followed ...
This is one major reason people in cars can look right at you (when you're on a motorcycle or bicycle)---AND NOT SEE YOU.
For the past year and a half, two friends and I have been having a two hour lunch together at Wyndemere every Tuesday, missing only a few.
After visiting the Wyndemere Board Room and seeing the amazing table top, I wondered how such gorgeous slabs of wood are, well “harvested.”
When these two images came over the internet from friends who send me such things, I could not get over the similarity: Six lions and six honeybees side-by-side at the water’s edge
As part of our Viking Russia trip, Bev and I spent a day exploring this militarized Swedish island.
I spent half and hour watching these three fishermen through my telescope pulling in big fish across the bay. The image its poor because it was tipping-down-rain at the time.
This little video about Pendulum Waves could be the heart of an entire physics lecture ....simple, elegant, beautiful.
This is the first time I have observed an earthquake moving the surface of the Earth around in real time .… they claim it is the first time it has been captured on video.
When we were all living on Grey Farms road in Stamford, we had an early morning bird that drove us to distraction…
Decades ago, when we went to Australia, we were often told to listen to the songs of the native LyreBirds. However, Lyrebirds don’t sing their own songs at all. According to David Attenborough, all we heard were clever copies of the songs of all the other birds…
Well this is something new. The news today is full of reports of the severe damage in Myanmar where a 7.7 magnitude earthquake destroyed many buildings including some brand-new construction projects…
Myanmar 7.7 magnitude earthquake as shown in a fascinating (terrifying?) time-lapse video…
The ancient 80-foot Swamp-Maple in our front yard in Maine finally got sick and tired of standing upright. This year, it began shedding branches and trunks at an alarming rate. Neighbors warned us in the winter that the larger branch had fallen, but when we arrived we saw the story was much more complex.
What is delightful is that the creature above, as big and heavy as a tank, actually looked like this…
A new report suggests that the Inflation Reduction Act could be even bigger than Congress thinks…
In the unprecedented hot/dry period China is suffering from, the Yangtze River is drying up.That would e like our Mississippi running dry.
A surprising, astonishing image that I had never seen before. You are looking at a cross-section of Northern Arctic Permafrost undercut by a rising, warming sea and falling away…
I have always thought that big neolithic monuments like Stonehenge were to be found in England and perhaps other Northern European countries…
When I was very young but old enough to remember it well … my dad woke me up on a clear, winter night to take me out into the backyard of 60 Westover Road to see waving curtains of green light in the sky that lasted for a long time.
A short drive North beyond Bangor will be smack in the middle of a total solar eclipse ..... two years from now .... 8 April 2024….
Here you’ll find animals playing way outside their comfort zone… Hungry Tiger, LUCKY monkey.
You might expect that when the Moon is fully in the shadow of the Earth it would be all black ... and it would be if the Earth did not have a thick atmosphere.
I am old enough to remember reading about the very controversial plans for reintroducing wolves (the natural apex predator) into Yellowstone.
Wild hogs plague this farmer, freely feeding on his corn... most likely without him knowing!
Starting a decade ago, everyone was told that honey bee colonies were collapsing all over the world…
Nonni woke me up this morning to see this Eagle camped out on our reef boulder called "Popover" this morning, probably fishing.
As one of the older members of the group, who is learning first hand about the many joints in the human body, I found this animation fascinating.
This short video displays astonishing artistry with brightly body-painted models who have contorted themselves into various animal shapes.
I find it CBS News video very compelling because it so clearly illustrates the nature of a tsunami.
Excellent images and videos of the recent, massive volcanic explosion in the middle of the Pacific Ocean … near Tonga.
Excellent visualizations of the same NASA data related to global warming (Climate Change)…
Barksdale was from the South, not the really Deep South, but far enough away that he had no experience with New England winters. ..
Barksdale was from the South, not the really Deep South, but far enough away that he had no experience with New England winters. ..
I am remembering that Old Paw got a patent on the “Ear Thermometer” far too early for there to be any electronics small enough or affordable enough to make the product economically viable. The early prototype models that Barnes Engineering could turn out were quite clunky, very similar to the first cell phones, which were like "WW2 walky-talkies" from which they had descended.
When we were all living on Grey Farms road in Stamford, we had an early morning bird that drove us to distraction…
Today, I found myself telling Mom more of what I remember of the stories Temple Bowling told our family when he visited us from his training base in Long Island. Those tales were told and retold at Westover Road dinner parties for years after the war. So here is another…
My purpose is to record this event as part of Barnes family history. I use the phrase “WW2 War Story” in the title to acknowledge that it is not corroborated by any contemporaneous photographs or even written down in the journal Dr. R. Bowling Barnes kept during his time in Germany just before the close of World War Two…
I came across this video and was once again impressed with Rory’s skill at grabbing the microphone and taking over the show. He threw himself so convincingly into the role of a commentator…. Wow! A part of a lovely celebration of Paw’s birthday back in our early days at Wyndemere…
In reading “Robert’s Paw’s Boyhood” (see specific section below), I discovered something completely unknown to me, but very popular with Eli Barnes, his family, and friends…
A Bucyres-Eire Percussion Cable Water Well Rig, exactly like the one I remember working in our backyard all spring the year our Deck House was being built.
When George visited us in Belfast, he handed me a wooden box of black and white negatives that belonged to my father. The notes say they relate to his graduate studies in Germany. Some were 35mm film rolls, the rest were 2.25 X 3.25 inch flat negatives….
One really blustery rainy day in the Spring of 1947 (George was just born), I was sitting on the porch of Paw’s home in Montgomery and spotted something yellow floating in the gutter of Wilson Street…
The digitized version of Robert’s Paw’s Boyhood is now here for all to enjoy!
I am rationing myself to just a few stories a day while reading "Robert’s Paw’s Boyhood.” The alligator in Paw’s “big trough” was a complete surprise to me and that is where I am now….
Hi Paw! I was talking to Krissy recently about Mommichen's ancestry and she encouraged me to reach out to you. She told me that she heard Mommichen was Jewish, do we have any evidence to support that? Thank you. - Leila
Rory, I was delighted to learn that you have discovered that your hours of community service might, with good luck, be served aboard the “USS Intrepid.” Wow!
When I was very young but old enough to remember it well … my dad woke me up on a clear, winter night to take me out into the backyard of 60 Westover Road to see waving curtains of green light in the sky that lasted for a long time.
At the “company store” of General Dynamics Convair in San Diego, I was delighted to find all manner of high precision parts that had become obsolete or been ‘Downgraded” to a status that would not allow them to be used in spaceflight equipment.
My older cousin, Temple Bowling, lied about his age at Maxwell Field in Montgomery and got flight training and went to war with Germany flying Lockheed P-38s.
Our land was easy pickings for rocks, and my new (at the time) Vermont wheelbarrow let me retrieve more of them from the nearby woods.
Back in the day, Woodway Country Club joined an Audubon Society program to employ its beautiful rolling fields and woods as a bird sanctuary as well as just a golf course.
After construction was nearly complete, Bev and I ran out of money, so we would do all the remaining tasks on the “Punch List” ourselves…
This image is one of the six inch square wine bottle coasters I built with particularly decorative, interesting, old wine corks that we had collected ourselves and with help from good friends. It looked like an easy project, but was not. There was a surprise.
