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2023 September 22 · 1400 words
Algiers’ paradoxical name; a polynomial that took 80 years to discover; ChatGPT’s monty hall difficulties; and what is an angzarr anyway?
2023 August 21 · 3000 words
A brief look at the mysterious world of real numbers
2023 July 23 · 2500 words
What pair of pieces have only been forked once in chess history?
2023 May 04 · 900 words
Why taxing cryptocurrency mining doesn’t hurt anyone, and how to de-decentralize bitcoin in one easy step
2023 February 26 · 6000 words
A 2010 paper entrenched the idea that humans cannot survive above 35 C wet-bulb temperature. What is wet-bulb temperature, and what did it really say?
2023 February 17 · 1100 words
Best of the Beatles or Best bait-and-switch?; the limits of parity arguments for irrationality; how newer, higher performance subway cars in NYC caused slower service; the importance of streets vs roads vs stroads for urban planning; the OEIS once had an error in the Fibonacci sequence
2023 February 10 · 2000 words
A brief look at fractal spirals
2023 January 24 · 1300 words
I’m not a planet either 2023: in review
2022 December 04 · 1500 words
‘you must study the endgame before everything else, for whereas the endings can be studied and mastered by themselves, the middle game and the opening must be studied in relation to the endgame’ -Capablanca
2022 November 18 · 2500 words
Some personal ramblings and a long digression about ASL
2022 October 10 · < 500 words
L’Hopital’s rule meets Lambert W function
2022 September 13 · 4500 words
Hint: it’s the sun
2022 September 12 · 3000 words
We can build on the core principles of the simplified model by looking at the many complexities introduced by nature
2022 September 05 · 2000 words
The influence of the atmosphere on incoming and outgoing light is immensely complicated – but we can understood the fundamental behavior by considering the simplest possible model
2022 August 29 · 1500 words
A simple balance of incoming and outgoing light determines the temperature of astronomical bodies lacking an atmosphere
2022 August 22 · 3000 words
A scientific explanation for why hot objects feel hot from a distance – the blackbody effect – lays the groundwork for understanding the balance regulating the Earth’s temperature.
2022 August 15 · 1100 words
Ozone is both toxic to breathe yet vital for human life. While ozone bears little relation to the greenhouse effect, the global response to the ozone hole is a model for addressing global warming.
2022 August 08 · 1200 words
How thick is the atmosphere and does it even have a top? Why does the atmosphere have distinct layers? A quick rundown on that stuff you breathe every few seconds.
2022 August 03 · 3000 words
Patton’s bloodthirsty battle speech and Chaplin’s call for peace and unity, ‘colorfully’ compared, with a side of color theory and video editing
2022 August 01 · 2000 words
Growing up, I was confused how summer warming exactly canceled winter cooling, as I lacked the physics background to understand how the Earth warms and cools. In this series, I first cover the requisite physics and then show the greenhouse effect as a consequence.

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