Earth: Hotter than Hell – What!... On March 25, 2010, Newsweek Religion Editor Lisa Miller appeared on the National Public Radio program, The Diane Rehm Show. Diane was speaking with Lisa about Lisa’s latest book Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination with the afterlife. Listening to Lisa talk about people’s diverse views of Heaven...

Copernicium and Nutrium... I read with great excitement on Yahoo News about the official naming of the heaviest element known to humankind. The Yahoo article, dated February 24, 2010, proclaimed that Copernicium was named after the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus and is 277 times as heavy as the lightest known element,...

Don T’s Range of Motion... A guy I know, Don Thomas (known to his family as Donut Head), told me that just recently he hurt his wrist and that its range of movement was only about 20% its normal range of movement. He went on to say that he thought his wrist function was improving at a rate of 1% a day. So how long, Don T asked...

Sari Dates... My daughter Sandy’s friend, Sari, noted on December 16, 2009, that on that particular day, when the date was expressed as 12/16/09, the square of the month equaled the product of the day of the month and the year. That is, December squared = (the 16th) times (09), or better yet, I think this is a...

SJ to Irvine = Newport Beach to SJ... I just returned home from a two-week visit to Irvine, California, a compact little town about 50 south of Los Angeles. I was visiting friends and family. Before starting the drive from San Jose to Irvine, I queried with MapQuest to check the mileage from my house, Point A, to the destination house, Point...

Non Linear Gauges and Exploding Jeeps... On Friday, November 13, I drove back home to San Jose from Las Vegas. The drive is a long one, and requires a lot of energy. In the last year, I have made it several times. It takes me just about nine hours and 20 gallons of gasoline to supply the motive force that compels my Jeep to travel the 515 miles...

The Regifting Game... My sister Connie sent this clever mathematical magic puzzle to me. Our cousin Judie, sent it to her. The puzzle is called Regifting Robin. You can find it at http://www.regiftable.com/regiftingrobinpopup.html Try it now. Try it a few times. Then we’ll break it apart and see how it works. The game...

Fly’s Flat Faces... A fly has been buzzing around my office room for the last couple of days. It navigates its way from corner to corner, lamp to telephone, computer monitor to my nose, and from window to mirror. It astutely steers its way around chairs and speakers and bedposts and guitars. It often descends quickly and...

The Chocolate Calculator... In the last few weeks, an interesting “chocolate calculator” has been traveling around the internet. The concept is that you choose a number of times a week you would like to have chocolate, do some arithmetic, and the chocolate calculator pops out your age. As long the number of times you want...

The 130’s at 1:30... Last week, while driving around in Southern California, my sister and I pulled into a public parking lot and, as we got out of her car, I asked her what time it was. She said it was 1:30. For some time, my sister has had a fascination with car license plates. She likes to notice multiple digits and...