Rules for Time Travelers [Spoiler? alert.]
posted by BitterOldPunk on May 14, 2009 - 82 comments

Flow of Time is a BBC documentary that "tries to explain time and covers the different ways we have used to understand Time, religion, mathematics, relativity, and quantum mechanics." Part 1, 2, 3, 4
posted by nola on Oct 21, 2008 - 10 comments

A Profound Sense of Time. "PZ Myers on the process that prompts the growth of all vertebrates from embryos to unspecialized segments to multicellular animals."
posted by homunculus on Oct 20, 2007 - 12 comments

The New "Science" of Siblings An amusing article from Time magazine by Jeffrey Kluger which reports that your siblings have more influece on your personality than any other group-- parents, peers, spouses, children, etc. My ex-wife thinks I'm sarcastic, combative, insensitive, etc. Do I get to blame my brothers and sisters for this now? Another article on this issue "The Science of Siblings". Apparently, they could have made me more likely to be gay too.
posted by notmtwain on Jul 9, 2006 - 28 comments

In one corner, precise astronomers who just want to keep things as they are. In the other, revisionist telecommunications officers. Fight!
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Nov 10, 2005 - 25 comments

"If time has to end, it can be described, instant by instant," Mr. Palomar thinks, "and each instant, when described, expands so that its end can no longer be seen." He decides that he will set himself to describing every instant of his life, and until he has described them all he will no longer think of being dead. At that moment he dies.
In memoriam of Italo Calvino, who died exactly 20 years ago.
"Calvino's novels" by his friend Gore Vidal. Calvino's obituary by Vidal, il maestro William Weaver's essay on Calvino's cities, Jeanette Winterson on Calvino's dream of being invisible, and Stefano Franchi's philosophical study on Palomar's doctrine of the void. More inside.
posted by matteo on Sep 18, 2005 - 18 comments

Between whimsy and science lay the water clocks of Bernard Gitton.
posted by arse_hat on Dec 26, 2004 - 6 comments

The False Controversy of Stem Cell Research. Kinsley: In fact, thinking it through is a moral obligation, especially if you are on the side of the argument that wants to stop or slow this research. It's not complicated. An embryo used in stem-cell research (and fertility treatments) is three to five days past conception. It consists of a few dozen cells that together are too small to be seen without a microscope. It has no consciousness, no self-awareness, no ability to feel love or pain. The smallest insect is far more human in every respect except potential.
posted by skallas on May 31, 2004 - 64 comments

Interesting article on how science will change our understanding of time. [Via AlDaily]
posted by gregb1007 on Jan 1, 2004 - 16 comments

The cable clock. This clocks tells time, just like any other clock, but the movement of the hands is hypnotic and beautiful. To physicists, time is defined by quantum mechanics. A photon with energy h (Planck's constant) behaves as though it were oscillating once per second. For Philosphers, time is less concrete, and they love to talk about it. Western society lives by the clock - does it make a difference if this is the kind of clock that you live by? After all, everyone knows that time is money. If you have to be a clock watcher, does it help if the clock is as calming as the Cable Clock is?
posted by kristin on Sep 9, 2003 - 20 comments

Just how plausable is time travel? Could you go back in time and kill your own grandfather?. Would you want to? Time travel is a popular subject for films, but do the writers work out exactly what is happening? Current opinion seems to be that time travel is only possible to the future, and is only one way, by travelling at near light speed. However despite this, time machines seem to already be on sale.
posted by Orange Goblin on Feb 10, 2003 - 53 comments