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You know that "I'm an insignificant dot in the middle of this enormous universe" feeling you get when you stare up into the night sky a little too long? Well, some Oxford scientists think you might be a little more special than that - or at least, the planet you live on is. Their radical new theory would not only obviate the need for dark energy to explain observed patterns of galactic motion, it would overturn the centuries-old Copernican Principle. Not bad for a day's work. In the 16th century, Copernicus hypothesized that the Earth is not the center of...
Lost in the excitement over the Antikythera Mechanism's Olympic calendar widget was news of its potential link to Archimedes, the greatest scientist of antiquity. Consisting of intricately linked dials that foretold the future positions of the sun, moon and possibly stars, the 2100-year-old Mechanism was recovered in 1900 from a shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera. Though its function took decades to determine, scientists assumed that it came from Rhodes, a center of ancient Greek astronomy. But in addition to finding a tiny dial indicating Olympic locations, researchers from the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project also realized that another...
Every time that we approach a problem, in any walk of life, we bring to bear assumptions that limit our ability to conceive fresh solutions. Innovators are always aware of assumptions and are always happy to confront them. There is a story told about a northern pike, a large carnivorous freshwater fish. A pike was put into an aquarium, which had a glass partition dividing it. In the other half from the pike there were many small fish. The pike tried repeatedly to eat the fish but each time hit the glass partition. The partition was eventually removed but...
