mortiz080

Since there's so much interest...  ... and since we seem to be making progress (see the comments in the last two posts), I'm going to continue this Challenge until next week.  My answer / analysis will be posted on Monday, May 1st.   (We're so close.  Keep on trying!)  Remember that the SearchResearch Challenge this week is to figure out how to make an interactive widget that can interactively show the relationship between height and visible distance in the "island viewing" problem.  That is:   1.   Can you make an interactive widget that illustrates "how far out to sea can you see" without going into full-developer mode and writing a bunch of HTML, CSS, and Javascript?   The comments from the last week have been pretty helpful, but nobody's got a solution yet.  It's possible that there isn't a good solution (that is, without going fully into HTML/Javascript), but we're tantalizingly close!   Keep searching!     -----...

Let's work on this a bit longer...  Remember that the SearchResearch Challenge this week is to figure out how to make an interactive widget that can interactively show the relationship between height and visible distance in the "island viewing" problem.  That is:   1.   Can you make an interactive widget that illustrates "how far out to sea can you see" without going into full-developer mode and writing a bunch of HTML, CSS, and Javascript?   The comments from the last week have been pretty helpful, but nobody's got a solution yet.  It's possible that there isn't a good solution (that is, without going fully into HTML/Javascript), but we're tantalizingly close!   One thing I found that helped was to use somewhat different search terms .   I found a lot of interesting tools by searching like this:       [ interactive animation tools ]  or       [ interactive tool for physics animations ]  How did I ...

I found myself trying to explain...  ... the "how high you have to be above the shore to see the Farallons" SRS Challenge to a friend.   You remember the original Challenge about seeing the Farallons .  The question there was " can you see the Farallon Islands from the western shoreline of San Francisco? "   There was an interesting observation in that post.  It turns out that you can see them from the bluff over the shore, but not when you're standing on the shore itself.   We figured out that the explanation (ignoring atmospheric refraction effects) was that you have to be some distance above the sand in order to see the islands.  The question was really how high do you need to be to see the base of the islands?    I told my friend about the math involved, waved my hands a lot, and drew a few diagrams on a piece of paper.  But sometimes, that's a bit, well... handwavy .  What I really wanted was a simple interactive graphic. ...

True, or False?   Answering these three questions was pretty straightforward. But as I discovered in the comments, our Regular Readers went farther into these topics than I ever imagined.  Bravo, Readers!  Bravo!   Let's see what we can discover to answer these Challenges.    1.  Is it true that some kinds of female sharks use only one ovary to produce eggs?   (That is, only one ovary actually produces eggs, the other is just kind of there?)    I started with a simple search that focuses on the question:       [ sharks only one ovary ]  I assume that if this was true, then anyone writing about it would probably write about "only one ovary."  I didn't search for a quoted phrase ("only one ovary") so as to not over-limit the results.  Google prefers words that are in the order presented in the query.  So the phrase only one ovary  would be prefered over those same words scattered all over the pa...

True, or False?   One of the biggest questions in these slightly strained days of fake news is whether or not something is true.   Without getting all epistemological on you, for this week's Challenge I have a few questions that have come up in my reading over the past few weeks.  These are items that I found and puzzled over. Each time I wondered-- Is that true?    Each time I did a bit of SearchResearch and found the answer fairly quickly.  But each case was a surprise.   Since we're slightly off on our regular schedule (this week was busy, so it took me a couple of extra days to get the time to write to you), I'll issue this Challenge today and answer it next Tuesday (April 18).  Then we'll get back onto the regular Wednesday Challenge / Monday Answer cycle.   Here are three "Is it true?" Challenges for the week.  Each one is fun, and shouldn't take you more than a minute or two to find the answer.  (But I suspect you'll enjoy lo...

Zounds! It's true: some plants DO explode, including ones that look quiet and serene in botanical gardens Waimea Arboretum As I did this research, the biggest surprise to me was that there are a LOT of plants that explode.  Luckily, most of them are reasonably small and gentle.  But there are some that can be deadly.   The comments this week were especially fantastic.  This week I'm going to lightly edit Regular Reader Mike's answer because it was great.  Nice job, Mike!  (I've added my comments in a different font so you can see them.)   Remember that the Challenges this week are:   1.  Are there, in fact, dangerous trees that can somehow eject sharp bits of themselves, potentially hurting a human being?   (If so... HOW would it do this?  So far as I know, few plants - venus fly traps aside - are capable of much movement.)     2.  More generally, are there other plants that can hurl seeds?   You can imagine this...

Crack....  Zing! I'd been walking through a quiet and peaceful botanical garden when it sounded like something blew up not far from me.   What's going on??  A millisecond later I heard something whizzing overhead--an angry bee sound of something passing overhead at high speed.   It seemed unlikely that anyone was shooting at me--this was the Waimea Arboretum after all--but I couldn't just ignore this high velocity drama overhead.  Waimea Arboretum Pond I DO remember seeing a sign about a "dangerous tree" on the garden pathway, but I'd just assumed it might fall down onto the path, not that it might fire high velocity projectiles in my general direction.  I thought it would be a peaceful stroll, not the wild west!   Still, I should have suspected something like this.  Just a week before I'd been looking at the seed pod of a clover-like weed in my front garden.  To my surprise, when I touched the long, oblong seed pod, lots of tiny seeds zipped...