Dan Falk

@danfalk

Hi! I write about #science for Smithsonian, Discover, Quanta, Nautilus, Undark, National Geographic, CBC Radio, & many other outlets. Books include The Science of Shakespeare and In Search of Time. Co-host of BookLab podcast. 🔭🪐⭐️⚛️

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Dan Falk@danfalk· 17d

Near Queen and Landsdowne, #Toronto, Saturday’s night:

A nighttime street scene with a restaurant with a terrific old neon sign saying “Skyline Restaurant.”

Dan Falk@danfalk· 17d

View of London from the Founder's Arms terrace, 1998 and 2023 -- both photos by me. 📷 ( #London #thenandnow #photography #history #architecture )

View of the City of London from the terrace of the Founder's Arms pub in Southwark, 1998.

View of the City of London from the terrace of the Founder's Arms pub in Southwark, 2023.

Dan Falk@danfalk· 19d

Bloomsbury Way, London -- 1998 and 2023. Both photos by me. 📷 #london #thenandnow #photography

Two photos of the same spot, on Bloomsbury Way, London -- 1998 and 2023. (We see, for example, that the Eastern Art gallery has become an Italian restaurant.) Both photos by Dan Falk.

Dan Falk@danfalk· 20d

Less of a difference than one might expect! View of London from Hampstead Heath, 1993 and 2024 -- both photos by me. 📷 :) ( #London #photography )

A view of London from Hampstead Heath in 1993.

A view of London from Hampstead Heath in 2024.

Dan Falk@danfalk· 20d

Let’s take an escalator to the moon: #moon #Toronto #lookup

Dan Falk@danfalk· 29d

I enjoyed this footnote in @toomanyspectra.bsky.social ‘s new book: ( #physics #science )

A footnote in which the author explains where atoms of potassium came from.

Dan Falk@danfalk· Jul 4

New Scientist FB post regarding the death toll from the Europe heat wave; 2400 crying emojis; 1400 laughing emojis.

Screen shot of the responses to a New Scientist story on the Europe heat wave death toll.

Dan Falk@danfalk· Jul 4

Director Christopher Nolan on why film is still pretty great (even if digital technologies have their place):

A quote from Nolan in the NYT in which he praises film, though he says he edits digitally and also uses computer graphics.

Dan Falk@danfalk· Jun 29

Sunday night's moonrise, viewed from #Toronto. ( #moon #fullmoon #photography )

The full moon is seen low above the horizon, near the bottom of the frame. The CN Tower is at left.

Dan Falk@danfalk· Jun 23

Tech here, tech there, tech everywhere! Here's an item from 31 years ago... (Note: aside from the microwave ovens, most of that stuff is in now our pockets [or perhaps in our hands]...)

A Toronto Star story from Oct. 1995, under the headline "Couch potatoes adapt to the 90s." It says that most of now have multiple TVs as well as VCRs, CD players, etc., in our homes.

Dan Falk@danfalk· Jun 22

Unloading sugar from the 31,000-ton bulk carrier “Mottler,” at the Redpath sugar refinery in #Toronto:

A huge green ship, at left, is being unloaded by a massive scooping crane, at right.

Dan Falk@danfalk· Jun 21

Scenes from this evening’s nature talk/walk at the Brickworks 🐢 in #Toronto.

People on the boardwalk gaze down at the pond

A view across the pond to the main Brickworks complex

Dan Falk@danfalk· Jun 19

I’ve walked past the Danforth Music Hall many, many times — but yesterday, by chance, there was a musician looking at the line-up, thought it made a nice shot. 🎸📷 ( #toronto )

A photo of the front of the Danforth Music Hall; on the left we see a musician looking, with a guitar slung over his back, looking at the poster showing the venue’s lineup.

Dan Falk@danfalk· Jun 18

From an urban or even suburban site, on a summer night, *by far* the most distant object you can readily see is Deneb (in Cygnus [the swan]), at a distance of about 2,600 light years. ⭐️ (By comparison, most of the other bright stars are a few dozen [up to a few hundred] light years away.)

Diagram showing the Summer Triangle, featuring the bright stars Vega, Deneb, and Altair.

Dan Falk@danfalk· Jun 16

My phone does not understand what “golden hour” means (or at least, it does not understand how photographers use the term).

A screen shot of my phone, showing a photo of a sunset with a mix of orange and blue colours. The sun has already set.

Dan Falk@danfalk· Jun 14

✨ Venus, Jupiter, and elusive Mercury, last night above #Toronto ( #photography #lookup ) 🙂

Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury above the Toronto skyline.

A close up of the previous photo, spotlighting the planet Mercury, just above the bank towers.

Dan Falk@danfalk· Jun 13

DSLR pix to come; meanwhile: planets by smartphone! The bright one is Venus; below it is Jupiter; and — the tough one! — if you zoom in you can see Mercury above the second light standard. (The bright “stars” close to the horizon are planes.) The stars Pollux and Castor are to the right of Venus. ✨

A late evening view of the western horizon, showing Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury.

Dan Falk@danfalk· Jun 9

#Venus and #Jupiter, last night, as seen from Toronto. (iPhone for the wider view; DSLR with 300mm lens for the close-up view. :) ) #planets #planetaryconjunction #planetgazing #toronto #lookup #VenusandJupiter

Venus and Jupiter are seen above the clock tower of Upper Canada College in Toronto.

Venus (right) and Jupiter as seen from Upper Canada College in Toronto. In the foreground is the weather vane on the college's clock tower.

Dan Falk@danfalk· Jun 8

Venus and Jupiter are at their closest to one another tonight and tomorrow night, sitting less than 2 degrees apart! (1.8 degrees today; about 1.7 degrees tomorrow.) (Diagram from @skyandtelescope.bsky.social.) And yes, Mercury is there too, although more challenging to see. Happy planet-gazing! :)

Diagram shows the positions of Venus and Jupiter in the evening sky -- Pollux and Castor are slightly above them, and to the right; Mercury is below and also to the right.

Dan Falk@danfalk· Jun 4

It's never too late -- these crazy kids waited 130 years to tie the knot! 🙃

Dan Falk@danfalk· Jun 4

Planets by smartphone? Sure, why not. The bright one is Venus; above and to the left is Jupiter. Near the top, and slightly to the right, are Pollux and Castor (the twins of Gemini):

A late evening scene: The bright point of light is Venus; above and to the left is Jupiter. Near the top, and slightly to the right, are Pollux and Castor (the twins of Gemini).

Dan Falk@danfalk· Jun 2

A visit to the Spadina House gardens in #Toronto on Monday:

A spherical purple flower, kind of poofy

Dan Falk@danfalk· Jun 1

I’m two days late, but: Happy 60th(!) Birthday to this amazing single! #beatles #thebeatles

The U.S. picture sleeve for the Beatles single Paperback Writer.

Dan Falk@danfalk· May 31

Red-winged blackbird, yesterday, in High Park, Toronto: #birds #birdsky #toronto #photography

Dan Falk@danfalk· May 29

Ain’t gonna win any prizes, but whatever: Here’s Jupiter and its four bright moons, tonight (iPhone aimed into telescope eyepiece). (To the eye, it looked much clearer — that’s life; your eye is better than a camera in many ways.) 🙂 ( * 🟠 *** )

We see Jupiter, near the centre; one of its moons is to the left, and three are to the right.

Dan Falk@danfalk· May 29

Tonight’s almost-full moon (iPhone aimed into telescope eyepiece.) The big crater at about “10 o’clock” is Tycho.

We see the almost-full moon , with many craters and lunar “seas.”

Dan Falk@danfalk· May 26

If I was a journalism instructor…. anyway, awkwardly ambiguous sentence:

An ambiguous sentence from a news story: “The early heat wave has struck before the annual summer window when lifeguards watch over bathers at popular beaches, increasing risks.”

Dan Falk@danfalk· May 24

Gosh I wasn’t really conscious of this! (Also, google is worse now than it was a couple of years ago, so it’s harder to find “Krusty the Clown with seltzer” than one would imagine.)

A screen shot from The Simpsons, in which we see the young Krusty the Clown spritzing himself with seltzer.

Dan Falk@danfalk· May 23

Greetings from rainy Toronto ( #rain #rainyday #toronto #phototography #iphonephotography )

We see a rainy intersection in Toronto (a person is holding an umbrella at far right), through a rain-splattered window

Dan Falk@danfalk· May 20

Oxford scene, 2023. Scanned from 35mm black & white film.