Category Archives: Series

Listing posts by topic, an alternative to using the Tag Cloud

Old St. Peter’s, Visigoths and a Henry

St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome isn’t nearly as old as it looks. Architects in ancient Rome often covered large interior spaces with barrel vaults and semicircular arches, although they hadn’t invented either. Someone started using arches and vaults, probably in … Continue reading

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Sifting Through the Ash Heap of History

Petrarch called Rome “a rubbish heap of history.” That’s what Ferdinand Gregorovius says Petrarch wrote in a letter, at any rate. “…Petrarch, who was then in Avignon, wrote on this occasion his patriotic epistle in Latin verses to Aeneas Tolomei … Continue reading

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HD 63935: Two Sub-Neptunes and Maybe More

Designations like HD 63935 b and c don’t exactly roll of the tongue. Although with a little work I might pronounce them “trippingly on the tongue,” as Hamlet put it. Maybe saying “sixty five ninety three five bee and cee” … Continue reading

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The Athenian Golden Age: Pericles, Aspasia, and All That

Ah! The Golden Age of Athens! “Golden age” arguably sounds classier than “the good old days.” But either way, it’s a bygone era that nostalgia says was so very much better than today. Folks living in a golden age may … Continue reading

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TESS, Three Stars and a Planet’s Odd Orbit

Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a robotic observatory, began watching 200,000 nearby stars on August 7, 2018. So far, scientists have found more than 2,200 TESS Objects of Interest (TOI). Of these, again so far, 154 have turned out to … Continue reading

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