- Whistlers

Recently, I learned about something really cool called Whistlers. It is a low frequency electromagnetic wave (audio range) produce by lighting striking the ionosphere. After the lightning strikes, an electromagnetic pulse is created and it travels very long distances. Due to dispersion, the higher frequencies of the pulse travel faster and with the proper equipment you can receive them and actually hear the sound of a whistle. It turns out these signals can come from "half around the world". Wow.

Here is a website where you can hear some of them: http://www.spaceweather.com/glossary/inspire.html

- Things I cannot understand

So I know this guy very successful (as far as I can tell) in his line of work though it has nothing to do with science, it has to do with business, finance, etc. I have to be honest, I have asked him for advice when it comes to money and I have been satisfied with his answers.

Recently, however, I have been able to see him in everyday action and it is pretty disappointing his level of stupidity when he is presented with physical situations that require a little common sense. Or course I am not talking about building a car, or a space shuttle, nor understading quantum mechanics or something like that. I am talking about simple things like untying a knot or putting together one of those pieces of furniture that come in a box with instructions that I thought even a kid could do without much trouble, etc, etc, etc.

I am the type of guy that believes non-science or non-engineering majors shouldn't take any science course, what for? Eventually they will go on to work in something that has nothing to do with science (most likely) and they could use those credit hours to learn more about their fields. On top of that, any one that has TA'd a science lab for non-science majors will tell you that 99.9% of those students do not give a fuck about the material they're suppose to be learning. I still maintain that opinion, I think that serves no real purpose, and I don't care what universities say about their broad curriculum or anything like that. Bottom line: if you are not in science/engineering you will not know/remember any of the things you were suppose to learn in your sciences courses.

I still have a problem with people being stupid when it comes to obvious physics. Specially those ones that think they are soooo smart because they have a good salary in some business-oriented job. I am not saying there are no smart people in business or finance, I am just saying some of those think they are smarter than everybody else just because their paycheck is larger than the average scientist's salary. Where did that come from? Did they learn that in college? Who told them the size of the paycheck makes them smart automatically?

And that, my friends... is one of the things I do not understand.