Follow The Oikofuge: Phenomena, filter it, and define how you want to receive the news (via Email, RSS, Telegram, WhatsApp etc.) https://follow.it/the-oikofuge-phenomena Sun, 02 Apr 2023 10:57:35 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0j3AiMx1gfcLkoy9CZgXDJO OK, another mathematical one. This is the fourth in a series of posts about the orbits followed by the Apollo spacecraft as they travelled to and from the moon—something I suppose is getting a little more topical now that NASA has finally got underway with its planned return to the lunar surface. I started with … Continue reading Converting Apollo State Vectors To Orbits →]]> Wed, 01 Feb 2023 14:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0j3AiMx1gfcLkoy9CZgXDJO https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0jrOvPJi0GWYixhxzpi7FpJ This is, to a large extent, a companion piece to my post about leap seconds, in which I described how the irregular rotation of the Earth means that the time as measured by our atomic clocks would fall out of synchrony with the actual movement of the sun in the sky, were it not for … Continue reading The Advent Of Atomic Time →]]> Wed, 04 Jan 2023 14:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0jrOvPJi0GWYixhxzpi7FpJ https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0g0Oigx7NJpWzRQaTQYXBS9 When I wrote about Philip Latham’s juvenile science-fiction novel Missing Men Of Saturn (1953) recently, I pointed out that Latham had made an astronomically well-informed guess about a possible pole star for Saturn’s moon Titan. Latham (a professional astronomer) knew the orientation of Saturn’s rotation axis, which would have allowed him to deduce the location … Continue reading Pole Stars Of Other Planets? →]]> Wed, 16 Nov 2022 14:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0g0Oigx7NJpWzRQaTQYXBS9 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0jxULiovj4Zjd3hDS9njgCr The “Phenomena” posts have been a little tied up with abstruse orbital mechanics and obscure revisions to lists of Scottish hills, of late, so I thought it might be time for a break from all that. So this post is about something superficially trivial in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, which has mildly annoyed … Continue reading Which Way Does Space Station V Rotate? →]]> Wed, 12 Oct 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0jxULiovj4Zjd3hDS9njgCr https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0jdytKJ0MmSTeifqJurszLU This is the second in my planned series of posts dealing with the revision history of the three “classic” tables of Scottish hills—the Munros, Donalds and Corbetts, which I introduced in an earlier post. I also introduced the idea of topographic prominence, and a way of charting these hill tables in two dimensions by plotting … Continue reading Scottish Hill Lists: The Donald Revisions →]]> Wed, 14 Sep 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0jdytKJ0MmSTeifqJurszLU https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0g0mH_i_K8FwVT72x6uxjiK In a previous post, I wrote about the three “classic” Scottish hills lists—the Munros (1891), Donalds (1935) and Corbetts (1952), and how these were brought together, in a publication commonly referred to as Munro’s Tables, by the Scottish Mountaineering Club in 1953. As a way of displaying the topographic data for these hills, I also … Continue reading Scottish Hill Lists: The Corbett Revisions →]]> Wed, 17 Aug 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0g0mH_i_K8FwVT72x6uxjiK https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0gs6Lavtl0nWabel3Iu4GjH A while ago I wrote a post entitled “How Apollo Got To The Moon”, which featured a few orbit graphics generated in Celestia, like the one above (which shows the orientation of Apollo 11’s departure orbit relative to the most intense region of the Van Allen Radiation Belt). I got a few enquiries about the data … Continue reading Finding Apollo Trajectory Data →]]> Wed, 08 Jun 2022 16:30:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0gs6Lavtl0nWabel3Iu4GjH https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0iC0OCbgxo4oe4sICfMfkNm If you’ve spent any time at all reading The Oikofuge, you’ll have gathered that I’m quite interested in hills—climbing them, looking at other hills from their summits, understanding their names and their place in history, landscape and land-use. What you won’t have seen me mention very often is the plethora of classifications that have been … Continue reading Scottish Hill Lists: The Classics →]]> Wed, 11 May 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0iC0OCbgxo4oe4sICfMfkNm https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0hY0kPmHURhfwX50KYzL9tX Robert A.J. Matthews published this seminal bit of applied physics in 1995. The journal reference is European Journal of Physics 16(4): 172-6, and you can access the full paper at ResearchGate, here. For his efforts, he was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in 1996. Matthews was the first (but by no means the last) to use mathematical physics to explore the popular claim that "dropped toast always lands butter-side down". The usual "explanation" invoked for this perceived rule is Murphy's Law---"If anything can go wrong, it will"---but Matthews sought to show that there were sound physical principles underlying the phenomenon.]]> Wed, 06 Apr 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0hY0kPmHURhfwX50KYzL9tX https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0g87MILJexIbabel3Iu4GjH 1. All planets move in elliptical orbits, with the sun at one focus.2. A line that connects a planet to the sun sweeps out equal areas in equal times.3. The square of the period of any planet is proportional to the cube of the semimajor axis of its orbit. Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion (formulated … Continue reading Keplerian Orbital Elements →]]> Wed, 30 Mar 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0g87MILJexIbabel3Iu4GjH https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0ixoPIKtFNtDSxhxzpi7FpJ As the weary traveller seesIn desert or prairie vast,Blue lakes, overhung with trees,That a pleasant shadow cast; Fair towns with turrets high,And shining roofs of gold,That vanish as he draws nigh,Like mists together rolled,— Henry Longfellow “Fata Morgana” (1873) I took the photograph above in Kolyuchin Inlet, in the Russian Far East, one evening in … Continue reading Fata Morgana →]]> Wed, 23 Feb 2022 14:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0ixoPIKtFNtDSxhxzpi7FpJ https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0jmFE3Gx5WL3UQqW5gBv7mX A couple of months ago I received this lovely picture from Mick Shaw, which I use with his permission. The sun is reflecting off a thin layer of sea-water covering the sand-flats of Morecambe Bay, and producing a pair of reflected-light rainbows in tandem with the usual primary and secondary arcs. Reflected-light rainbows were the … Continue reading More About Converging Rainbows →]]> Wed, 26 Jan 2022 14:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0jmFE3Gx5WL3UQqW5gBv7mX https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0hy3fAVtzeIQ5ONpYks2fGs A section of the horizon was etched sharply against a pearly region of the sky. Every pointed irregularity of that part of the horizon was in keen focus. Above it, the sky was in a soft glow (fading with height) a third of the way to the zenith. The glow consisted of bright, curving streamers … Continue reading Same Sun, Other Skies →]]> Wed, 08 Dec 2021 14:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0hy3fAVtzeIQ5ONpYks2fGs https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0hwEeRFTe7SOuGrEXdXG_66 I took the above panoramic view, spanning something like 120 degrees, in a local park towards the end of last year. The sun was almost on the horizon to the southwest, at right of frame. The moon was well risen in the southeast, framed by the little red box in the image above. After taking … Continue reading Why Does The Illuminated Side Of The Moon Sometimes Not Point At The Sun? →]]> Wed, 01 Sep 2021 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0hwEeRFTe7SOuGrEXdXG_66 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0iYSYHSN96Jg8lTP0vptTFR I published my original “We Are Stardust” post some time ago, introducing the infographic above, which shows the cosmic origins of the chemical elements that make up our bodies, according to mass. At that time I concluded that Joni Mitchell should actually have sung “We are 90% stardust,” because that’s the proportion of our body … Continue reading We Are Stardust (Supplement) →]]> Wed, 21 Jul 2021 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0iYSYHSN96Jg8lTP0vptTFR https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0hg2rWwoCMqJrmyhX6zo8SW ˈlæbɪrɪnθ Labyrinth: 1) A structure consisting of a number of intercommunicating passages arranged in bewildering complexity, through which it is difficult or impossible to find one’s way without guidance. 2) A structure consisting of a single passageway winding compactly through a tortuous route between an entrance and a central point. When Minos reached Cretan soil … Continue reading Labyrinth →]]> Wed, 07 Jul 2021 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0hg2rWwoCMqJrmyhX6zo8SW https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0j9Iqt-dJJaXxhSCv31NykC A few months ago I ran into the periodic table above, detailing the cosmological origins of the chemical elements. And it occurred to me that I could quantify Joni Mitchell's claim that "we are stardust". How much of the human body is actually produced by the stars? But before I get to that, I should probably explain a little about the various categories indicated by the colours in the chart above.]]> Wed, 19 May 2021 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0j9Iqt-dJJaXxhSCv31NykC https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0igeBWD3sz-rwpx5_w21kha Yesterday (as this post goes live) was Old Lady-Day, once a significant day in the English agricultural calendar. And today (April 6th), a new tax year begins in the UK. These dates are not unrelated to each other, and are also linked to the Christian Feast of the Annunciation, which commemorates the Biblical event depicted in the Leonardo painting at the head of this post---the arrival of the Angel Gabriel to inform the Virgin Mary that she was to conceive a miraculous child.]]> Tue, 06 Apr 2021 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0igeBWD3sz-rwpx5_w21kha https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0jdv559MaSjkXtuT6pSmY81 If the alien cyborgs have constructed this miraculous planet-coring device with the precision I would expect of them, I predict we shall plunge entirely through the center and out to the other side. Gregory Benford Tides Of Light (1989) There’s an old puzzle in physics, to work out how long it would take a person … Continue reading Falling Through The Earth →]]> Wed, 10 Feb 2021 14:00:49 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0jdv559MaSjkXtuT6pSmY81 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0jdv559MaSjka8qfTAM-Smm The Boon Companion has been experimenting with long exposure times and intentional camera movement, of late. She was just about to discard the motion-blurred cyclist above as a failed experiment when something about the image caught my eye. In the thirtieth-of-a-second exposure, the bicycle wheel has rolled a short distance. But why do the spokes … Continue reading Long-Exposure Bicycle Spokes →]]> Wed, 13 Jan 2021 14:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/T0kbTF1LC0jdv559MaSjka8qfTAM-Smm