Skip to content

Sign up for a small monthly payment and enjoy ads-free browsing at 3QD


3 Quarks Daily

Make a one-time donation and enjoy ads-free browsing at 3QD


  • Home
  • About Us
  • Monday Magazine
  • Archives
  • Support 3QD
  • Log In

Star Size Comparison

Posted on Sunday, Jun 14, 2009 4:52AMFriday, December 8, 2017 by S. Abbas Raza

Via Bad Astronomy:

Post navigation

Obama’s options in Pakistan
Bugs and the Victorians

Receive 3QD Posts by Email

Please fill out the form below to get our email with all the posts from the previous 24 hours, which is sent out a bit after midnight (NY City time) each day. This is completely free of charge for everyone.
Name: 
Your email address:*
Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide

Coronavirus COVID-19 Info

PLEASE CLICK HERE.

Search 3QD



Follow 3QD on Social Media


What People Say About 3QD




"3 Quarks is a daily must-read for intellectuals of all stripes. It is perhaps even smarter and better and more comprehensive than Arts & Letters Daily, the de facto gold standard of the smart set on the internet."

—Laura Claridge, former Professor of English at the U.S. Naval Academy, and author of Romantic Potency: The Paradox of Desire, Tamara de Lempicka: A Life of Deco and Decadence, and Norman Rockwell: A Life.




"For sheer elegance, wit and worldly wisdom when it comes to reading, editing, presenting the real news of the world... for liveliness, cosmopolitanism, range of scientific, philosophical, and literary curiosity in harvesting big and provocative ideas... for consistency of character and manners, ever above the ordinary... 3 Quarks stands alone. If 3 Quarks Daily were a person, wouldn't it be Proust?"

—Christopher Lydon, host of the excellent show "Open Source" on National Public Radio, author, media personality.




"I'm a big admirer of 3 Quarks Daily!"

—William Dalrymple, award winning historian and travel writer, as well as distinguished broadcaster, critic, art historian, foreign correspondent and founder and co-director of Asia's largest literary festival.




"I look at your site every day. It's where the two cultures meet."

—Suketu Mehta, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist Maximum City, winner of the O. Henry Prize, and frequent contributor to various newspapers and magazines.




"3 Quarks Daily is a warm and often amusing home for intellectuals and other wags."

—Annie Dillard, Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer.




"Mighty interesting website! I've added it to my favorites."

—Daniel Dennett, University Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University.




"3 Quarks Daily is smart and highclass."

—Robert Pinsky, only three-term U.S. Poet Laureate.




"3 Quarks Daily is terrific - many congratulations, and many thanks!"

—Alain de Botton, best-selling Swiss-British writer and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.




"3 Quarks Daily is one of the most interesting and thoughtful websites out there."

—Sean Carroll, physicist at Caltech, author.




3 Quarks Daily is an essential stop for any serious reader on the Web."

—Ken Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch since 1993.








Recent Comments on 3QD

  • Rick Jones Thanks Jim. I consider myself well read but amazingly had never heard of Pessoa or his heteronyms (great word and concept). What a gift!

    Thursday Poem ·  Thursday, April 22, 2021

  • Leanne Ogasawara When I was reading your essay, I was so happy because we were really speaking to a lot of the same subjects!!! Thank you so much for sharing my...

    The Slightly Wrong Physics of Spinning Muons ·  Thursday, April 22, 2021

  • David Kordahl Thank you so much for your generous comment, Leanne. I often feel irritated by the articles I read that try to explain the significance of events...

    The Slightly Wrong Physics of Spinning Muons ·  Thursday, April 22, 2021

  • Aram Jahn David: John Martin sold Black Sparrow to David R. Godine 19 years ago, after selling the rights to Bukowski, Fante, and Bowles to Harper Collins....

    Small Press Publishing: Necessary Imprint on a Big-Press World ·  Wednesday, April 21, 2021

  • Sally Benzon I think Black Sparrow was taken up by Godine.

    Small Press Publishing: Necessary Imprint on a Big-Press World ·  Wednesday, April 21, 2021

  • Leanne Ogasawara Thank you so much for this essay, David! It was so clear. I bet you are a fabulous teacher! I haven’t read any of the media pieces on the findings...

    The Slightly Wrong Physics of Spinning Muons ·  Wednesday, April 21, 2021

  • Leanne Ogasawara Congratulations! It is a wonderful book! I keep it out on a reading table.

    Small Press Publishing: Necessary Imprint on a Big-Press World ·  Wednesday, April 21, 2021

  • David Oates Thanks Charlie -- I'll quote you! (or your friend Ken Brewer)... I've been down that academic road too. But decided to write for a human audience...

    Small Press Publishing: Necessary Imprint on a Big-Press World ·  Wednesday, April 21, 2021

  • David Oates Thanks Leanne. I'm still waiting for some open space in this crazy-busy week so I can read your short story. Thx too for the shout-out for Mountains...

    Small Press Publishing: Necessary Imprint on a Big-Press World ·  Wednesday, April 21, 2021

  • David Oates Thanks for the update, Aram... and for the appreciative enthusiasm. Is Black Sparrow still in existence? I'll probably focus the first of the...

    Small Press Publishing: Necessary Imprint on a Big-Press World ·  Wednesday, April 21, 2021

  • Charlie Huenemann Great essay on the importance of so-called "lesser" books on the shaping of one's mind. I have run into so many scholars who got started in just the...

    Books I Have Known: A Scientific Childhood (Part 1) ·  Tuesday, April 20, 2021

  • Charlie Huenemann Interesting essay, and subsequent discussion. I think it is important to note that the peer-review system can be just as political and capricious as...

    Institutionalizing Public Philosophy ·  Tuesday, April 20, 2021

  • Lorax It seems like the concerns above are ones that can, and sometimes do, apply to plain old research and scholarly activity: even if it's peer reviewed,...

    Institutionalizing Public Philosophy ·  Tuesday, April 20, 2021

  • Roger Frye As Reuben Hersh argued, a proof is convincing and explaining. Lean is a great step in the right direction....

    Mathematical Dæmons ·  Tuesday, April 20, 2021

  • Bill Benzon Yes, all too often peer review devolves into mutual back-slapping. Not sure what can be done about that.

    Institutionalizing Public Philosophy ·  Tuesday, April 20, 2021

  • Bill Benzon Harvard's faced this problem in the case of Cornel West. You may remember that early in the millennium he got in trouble with then president Lawrence...

    Institutionalizing Public Philosophy ·  Tuesday, April 20, 2021

  • David Kordahl Thanks for reading, Jochen. I have to admit that writing this post made me realize just how much skillful pruning the professional science journalists...

    The Slightly Wrong Physics of Spinning Muons ·  Tuesday, April 20, 2021

  • Martinlucas It is interesting to reflect on the culture which makes you feel the need to write this piece. There is a pervasive puritanism which tends to see...

    The Valet and His Hero ·  Tuesday, April 20, 2021

  • Eric Weiner Michael, I really don't know. I think there is a range in terms of quality, rigor, value, impact, and general significance and importance of public...

    Institutionalizing Public Philosophy ·  Tuesday, April 20, 2021

  • Rajendra Kshirsagar I think if the critic is sympathetic and sensitive, the analysis can only add to the listener's experience. A great example is the book Absolutely on...

    Do We Deprive Music of Its Mystery by Writing About It? ·  Tuesday, April 20, 2021

  • Animal Symbolicum I suspect — and I'm in good company here — that if the mathematical community is going to count a computer as having solved a Millenium Prize...

    Mathematical Dæmons ·  Tuesday, April 20, 2021

  • Michael Liss Eric, if you were King (or Dean) how would you balance the value of popularizing scholarship (and perhaps even creating young future scholars who...

    Institutionalizing Public Philosophy ·  Tuesday, April 20, 2021

  • Eric Weiner Do you think there are other kinds of intellectual production (i.e., creative, instructional, community-based) that should be "institutionalized?"...

    Institutionalizing Public Philosophy ·  Tuesday, April 20, 2021

  • Brooks Riley Thank you, Mary. The unique advantage of our species is the ability to imagine ourselves in other habitats or other lives. It's more than...

    On the Move ·  Tuesday, April 20, 2021

  • Brooks Riley You’re right, the jilted lover tone is not far from the truth. In Switzerland, Nietzsche had Wagner more or less to himself. In Bayreuth he had to...

    The Valet and His Hero ·  Tuesday, April 20, 2021

  • Brooks Riley Speaking of Texas, when I was 14, my parents put me on a train from Washington to Austin to visit my half-sisters. The trip took two days. On the...

    On the Move ·  Tuesday, April 20, 2021

  • Chris Horner Many thanks, Brooks. I suppose the motives for FN's rejection of Wagner could be seen in a number of ways. In some respects he writes about Wagner in...

    The Valet and His Hero ·  Tuesday, April 20, 2021

  • Aram Jahn Of the Big Five, the sale of Simon and Schuster to Penguin/Random House is expected to go through before the end of the year. And then there were...

    Small Press Publishing: Necessary Imprint on a Big-Press World ·  Tuesday, April 20, 2021

  • Mary Hrovat Thank you so much for this thoughtful essay! I especially enjoyed your description of (vicarious) serial nesting. Even when I (used to) take the bus...

    On the Move ·  Tuesday, April 20, 2021

  • Jochen Szangolies
    In a few paragraphs, I hope to sketch a few sturdy ideas that can be kicked away as soon as they’re no longer useful.
    ...

    The Slightly Wrong Physics of Spinning Muons ·  Tuesday, April 20, 2021

3QD Design History and Credits

The original site was designed by S. Abbas Raza in 2004 but soon completely redesigned by Mikko Hyppönen and deployed by Henrik Rydberg. It was later upgraded extensively by Dan Balis in 2006. The next major revision was designed by S. Abbas Raza, building upon the earlier look, and coded by Dumky de Wilde in 2013. And this current version 5.0 has been designed and deployed by Dumky de Wilde in collaboration with S. Abbas Raza.

3 Quarks Daily

3 Quarks Daily started in 2004 with the idea of creating a curated retreat for everything intellectual on the web. No clickbait, no fake news, not just entertainment, but depth and breadth —something increasingly hard to find on the internet today. If you like what we do, please consider making a donation.