doing the math for you since 1994
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Mission 2024 YR4: Saving Earth (or Just Having a Cosmic Road Trip) with JPL’s Mission Design Tool
The Cosmic Panic Button Every now and then, humanity is graced with the thrilling news that an asteroid might—just might—have our little blue planet in its celestial crosshairs. Enter 2024 YR4, a near-Earth asteroid making waves in the headlines with a non-zero chance of impact in 2032. Naturally, this has led to an avalanche of…
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The Sunk Cost Fallacy in Science: When Gigantic Budgets Meet Reluctant Goodbyes
The Reluctance to Let Go Science is a beautiful, relentless pursuit of truth, but it is also expensive—astronomically so, in some cases. The sunk cost fallacy, a well-known cognitive bias, is not just the domain of gamblers at the poker table or hopeless romantics in doomed relationships. It is alive and well in the realm…
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Debris Trajectories from Starship 7 Test Flight
The seventh test flight of SpaceX’s Starship ended prematurely on January 16, 2025, with an explosion of the upper stage (Ship 33) over the Turks and Caicos Islands. When an event like this occurs, accurately predicting the trajectory of debris is crucial for public safety, environmental impact assessment, and scientific inquiry. This article explores the…
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The Wolfram Physics Project: Ambition, Innovation, and Questions of Power Dynamics
In the landscape of modern theoretical physics, few endeavors are as ambitious—or as controversial—as the Wolfram Physics Project. Launched with considerable fanfare, this collaboration between technology entrepreneur Stephen Wolfram and mathematician Jonathan Gorard represents an audacious attempt to reformulate our understanding of the universe’s fundamental nature. But beneath the surface of this groundbreaking project lie…
