Library section change…
In these times, when mad men like Putin and Trump can become presidents of powerful nations, is should be no surprise to read the following note in your Public Library:
Categorie: Texts in English/Engels
Some texts are in English, most of them in Dutch / Op deze site zijn er berichten in het Engels (slechts een paar), maar de meeste in het Nederlands
On a difficult day…
“Today was a Difficult Day,” said Pooh. There was a pause. “Do you want to talk about it?” asked Piglet.
Ukraine in 2022
A mural featuring the colours of the Ukraine flag and its capital Kyiv has appeared on a street in Cardiff.
Where is everybody?
In the book “Aliens: the World’s leading scientists in search for extraterrestrial life” by Jim Al Khalili I read the following anecdote of one of those leading scientists: Enrico Fermi.
The Pioneer Plaque impact
In Carl Sagan’s publication Cosmic Connection (1975) he reveals some of the background and impact of the design of the Pioneer 10 and 11 plaque. Below we publish some excerpts from this publication.
Modern METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence)
In 1932, Karl Jansky serendipitously observed radiation coming from the Milky Way at Bell Labs, thereby inaugurating the science of radio astronomy. By this point, the evidence that humans were the only intelligent species in the solar system was mounting, but Jansky’s breakthrough turned the entire galaxy into fertile hunting grounds for extraterrestrial life.
Talking to Aliens?!
In 1961, nine of the smartest individuals in the United States received a rather unusual letter in the mail. It consisted of a long string of binary digits and a short message: “Here is a hypothetical message received from outer space. It contains 551 zeros and ones. What does it mean?” Neither the sender nor his recipients knew it at the time, but this letter would later serve as the prototype for the first message for extraterrestrial intelligence ever broadcast into space. Its initial test run on Earth, however, was a total failure.
How Scientists Could Tell the World if They Find Alien Life
Relatively soon, some prominent astrobiologists say, we will most likely have either found compelling evidence for extraterrestrial life or banished its possible existence to the ever shrinking edges of the cosmos beyond the rapidly expanding reach of our observations. Such answers could come by the end of the 2030s from any of a number of initiatives ardently seeking alien life.
A short history of UFOs in America
The belief in alien encounters has long been a prominent feature of American life. A 1997 poll from CNN/Time on the 50th anniversary of the Roswell incident found that 80% of Americans think the government is hiding knowledge of the existence of extraterrestrial life forms.
Very Short Introductions
Oxford’s Very Short Introductions series offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects – from Public Health to Buddhist Ethics, Soft Matter to Classics, and Art History to Globalization.
Or, in alphabetical order, from Abolitionism to Zionism.