So, if you ended up on this page, I think it’s not by accident and that you’re after fellow Chess players in Rome. Well, you might have come to the right place. You’ll confirm me later:) Based on my experience, I’m gonna list the places to play over-the-board chess in Rome. This piece focusses on…
Where to play Chess in Rome?
Le saviez-vous ? Cornac – un mot français avec des origines sri-lankaises
En effet, il se trouve que le mot français « cornac » est un mot dérivé du cinghalais, une des langues officielles du Sri Lanka. Il est peut-être le seul mot avec une telle origine, se trouvant dans la langue française, que je sache. Alors ma question est la suivante. Comment aurait-il pu en arriver là ?…
Blogpost triggered by Covid-19 after a three-year hiatus + myriad of updates
Well, well, well, it’s been more than three years that I hadn’t written a blogpost over here, or anywhere else for that matter I think. The last post I made was about the Rosetta space mission, at the occasion of its final moment as it soft-landed on the comet 67P. That was late September 2016.…
Adieu, Rosetta !
Well, it’s an emotional moment, I have to admit. Knowing that Rosetta will reach the surface of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in a controlled impact in several hours from now, is quite hard to imagine. But this is the reality, however. Launched in 2004, Rosetta arrived at her comet in August 2014 after more than 10…
Maths behind the ‘Black hole in your pocket’ Video by kurzgesagt – Part 1
I guess the tittle explains it all. I assume you arrived at this page after having watched the recent video by kurzgesagt on youtube. If you’ve not watched it already, I invite you to have a look at the video below. Now that you’ve watched the video I assume that you’ve gathered some background in…
Un double arc-en-ciel à Paris
Ce n’est pas tous les jours que l’on voit des arcs-en-ciel dans la vie quotidienne. Il faut avoir la bonne combinaison de pluie et de soleil. Ceci dit, c’est évident que voir un double arc-en-ciel est un phénomène qui est extrêmement rare, personnellement je n’en avais jamais vu. Donc aujourd’hui je vais vous présenter le…
Photos from Total Lunar Eclipse – October 2014
In fact it’s been a week since my previous blog post. We’ve had the total lunar eclipse last Wednesday and observations from Hanoi were not so much disappointing, despite the inherent urban light pollution. In my case I was observing from the rooftop of our house in Dao Tan, Hanoi located close to the Lotte…
Total Lunar Eclipse October 2014 Featuring Blood Moon from Hanoi
Eclipse is in the air ! In my life as an amateur astronomer I’ve had a lot of fun with solar eclipses, but now it’s the time to mingle a bit with lunar eclipses. As I blog this entry from Hanoi, both penumbral and partial phases of today’s total lunar eclipse have already started. But…
Sri Lankan student names an asteroid [Press Release]
Today I have the following news to publish as the World Space Week 2014 kicks off worldwide. It’s not often that someone from Sri Lanka gets to name an asteroid. It’s indeed remarkable when it’s a teenager. Here it goes….. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ In an international campaign to name an asteroid, Chanaka Perera (17) from Sri Lanka,…
Back at the Molesworth Telescope
Recently I was back in Sri Lanka for a short stay of about a fortnight and was able to visit the historic Molesworth Telescope. As usual the telescope was found installed with its dome in the grounds of the University of Colombo and was under the custody of Mathematical & Astronomical Society (MAS) of University…
Determining pulsar period for a given time
Thanks to the recent accomplishments in the pulsar astronomy, now it has become possible to do a lot of science with pulsars. Potential practices include, testing general relativity, indirect detection of gravitational waves, etc. In this domain, the applications involved with millisecond pulsars (MSPs) are abundant majorly due to the precision of their orbital period,…