Author: thomasstigwikman

My name is Thomas Wikman. I am a software/robotics engineer with a background in physics. I am currently retired. I took early retirement. I am a dog lover, and especially a Leonberger lover, a home brewer, craft beer enthusiast, I’m learning French, and I am an avid reader. I live in Dallas, Texas, but I am originally from Sweden. I am married to Claudia, and we have three children. I have two blogs. The first feature the crazy adventures of our Leonberger Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle as well as information on Leonbergers. The second blog, superfactful, feature information and facts I think are very interesting. With this blog I would like to create a list of facts that are accepted as true among the experts of the field and yet disputed amongst the public or highly surprising. These facts are special and in lieu of a better word I call them super-facts.

Red Touches Yellow Kill A Fellow

There at least 105 species of snake in Texas, the most of any U.S. state and 15 species are significantly venomous and four more are mildly venomous. The most venomous is the Texas coral snake, which has enough venom in one bite to kill six adult men. However, the milk snake and the king snake are harmless snakes that look very similar to the coral snake. The way to tell the difference is to use the rhyme “Red touches yellow, kill a fellow; red touches black, friend to Jack” or alternatively “Red touch black, safe for Jack. Red touches yellow, kills a fellow”.

Look at the two pictures below. One is my daughter with the critter man, and she is holding a milk snake. The other picture is of the deadly coral snake. Can you tell them apart by using the rhyme?

My daughter with a milk snake. We hired the critter man for her birthday.
Photo of a Texas coral snake. Stock Photo ID: 2018440949 by Scott Delony

The Green Mamba

When our kids were young, we frequently visited Dinosaur State Park near Glen Rose, Texas. On one occasion I was carrying my four-year-old son on my shoulders. Suddenly he shouted, “Dad you almost stepped on that Green Mamba”. I looked down and between my feet crawled a green snake. It was a harmless green grass snake, but I did not even know there were green snakes in Texas.

On another occasion I was showing a whipsnake to my daughter. It was at a girl scout camp, and I had taken the snake out from its glass jar located in a room where they stored nonvenomous snakes. I was holding it in my hands. The whipsnake was pretty strong and decided to crawl under my shirt sleeve. I had to fight it to get it out from underneath my shirt sleeve and back into its glass jar. I probably looked like a clown juggling a snake. Whipsnakes are thin but very strong, long and stubborn.

We’ve also seen all kinds of water snakes as well as the dangerous water moccasin or cottonmouth as it is also called. We’ve seen rat snakes and snakes in our yard. I’ve seen a lot of snakes in the wild here in Texas and I typically don’t know what kind they are. That’s why I needed The Lone Star Field Guide to Texas Snakes by Alan Tennant.

Lone Star Field Guide to Texas Snakes by Alan Tennant

The goal of this blog is to create a list of what I call super facts. Important facts that we know to be true and yet they are shocking or disputed among non-experts. Super facts are important facts that people get wrong.

However, I sometimes create posts that are not super facts but contain other interesting information, such as this book review and book recommendation of the Lone Star Field Guide to Texas Snakes. This book features 105 snakes and includes hundreds of photos, information on prey and reproduction, habitat information, geographical distribution, and more. I bought the paperback version of the book.

  • Paperback –  Publisher : Taylor Trade Publishing; Third edition (December 28, 2005), ISBN-10 : 1589792092, ISBN-13 : 978-1589792098, 352 pages, item weight : 1.15 pounds, dimensions : ‎ ‏ 7.1 x 0.81 x 8.46 inches, it costs $43.46 new on Amazon, but you can buy used copies much cheaper. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
  • Kindle –  Published : Taylor Trade Publishing; 3rd edition (January 27, 2006), ASIN : B00IUFI1K8, 352 pages, it costs $10.99 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Front cover of Lone Star Field Guide to Texas Snakes. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the paperback version of the book.

Amazon’s description of the book

The State of Texas not only boasts the largest snakes in North America, but also the largest number of species—105. This guide describes in detail each and every one of them, from the benign Texas long-nosed snake, to the venomous Western Cottonmouth. Facts on the biology and behavior are given, plus the latest findings on abundance, reproduction, prey, sizes, and habitat.

In addition, introductory chapters describe the physiology and diet of snakes, and an all-important section on “Venom and Evenomation” debunks the many myths surrounding what to do when bit by a venomous snake. 128 color plates of species and subspecies aid in identification.

This is my five-star review for Lone Star Field Guide to Texas Snakes

The review I posted below is a copy from Amazon, but I’ve improved it a bit. For example, in my original review of 2008 I called snakes poisonous. Snakes are not poisonous, they are venomous.

You almost stepped on that green mamba

“Dad, you almost stepped on that Green Mamba”. That is what my 4-year old (sitting on my shoulders) told me when we were walking in Dinosaur Valley state park. Using the second edition of this book I was able to identify the snake as the “Rough Green Snake” when I got home.

I am glad there are no Green Mambas in Texas (in the wild), but there are still some very poisonous snakes to watch out for. Seven species of rattle snake, two species of Massasauga, and a pigmy rattle snake, cottonmouth (water moccasin), three species of copperhead, and the Texas Coral snake. The Texas Coral snake is the most venomous of the snakes in Texas (but it is not aggressive) and the poison from the Mojave Rattle Snake can kill six adults (lives only in West Texas). There are 105 species of snakes in Texas.

This edition (third edition) has essentially the same pictures and information as the second edition, but the third edition is organized better, is a little bit bigger, and more updated. What I really like about this book is that for each of the snakes it has a map of Texas showing the distribution of the snake.

The book is also well organized, and the photos are good. It is also an interesting book to read, it contains a lot of facts about the various snakes. Once you start reading about the various snakes, and looking at the pictures and the distribution maps, you just can’t put it down. The book tickles your curiosity. Compared to other Texas snake books that I have seen this one is the most interesting and the most well-organized of them all. If you quickly need to identify a snake this is the right book.

Back cover of Lone Star Field Guide to Texas Snakes. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the Kindle version of the book.

Western Diamondback Rattlesnake Crotalus Atrox

One of the most common venomous snakes in Texas is the Western Diamondback Rattlesnake. It is fairly big, 3 to 7 feet long. Nearly all of the most serious cases of snakebite treated in Texas hospitals are inflicted by Crotalus Atrox, the Western Diamond-back. Deaths are uncommon but the loss of limbs is more common. There are 10 species of rattlesnake in Texas.

Western Diamondback Rattlesnake, crotalus atrox. Stock Photo ID: 2494534895 by Clint H

To see the Super Facts click here

The End of Everything By Katie Mack

What will the end of everything be like? How will everything end? Will it be the Big Crunch as the Universe collapses back to a reverse Big Bang? Will it be the heat death, or what is better called the high-entropy death? Will it be the Big Rip as the Universe is ripped apart, or vacuum decay? Maybe it will be the Quantum Bubble of Death? Wouldn’t the Quantum Bubble of Death be a cool way to die?

The goal of this blog is to create a list of what I call super facts. Important facts that we know to be true and yet they are surprising, shocking or disputed among non-experts. Super facts are important facts that people get wrong. However, I sometimes create posts that are not super facts but other interesting information, such as this book review and book recommendation.

The End of Everything: (Astrophysically Speaking) by Katie Mack is a relatively easy book on cosmology. It features scientifically guided speculation on how the Universe will end. As in the previous book I reviewed the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) is a major source for the information. It is amazing what it can tell you. I bought the hardback version of it. I can add that this book and my Amazon review was written in 2020, a good year for talking about the end of the world.

  • Hardcover –  Publisher : Scribner; Illustrated edition (August 4, 2020), ISBN-10 : 198210354X, ISBN-13 : 978-1982103545, 240 pages, item weight : 2.31 pounds, dimensions : ‎5.5 x 1 x 8.38 inches, it costs $19.14 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
  • Paperback –  Publisher : Scribner (May 4, 2021), ISBN-10 : 1982103558, ISBN-13 : 978-1982103552, 256 pages, item weight : 2.31 pounds, dimensions : ‎ ‏ : ‎5.5 x 0.6 x 8.38 inches, it costs $10.99 on Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
  • Kindle –  Published : August 04, 2020, ASIN : B07Z41TTNK, 237 pages, it costs $14.89 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
  • Audiobook –  Publisher : Scribner (August 4, 2020), ASIN : B07Z8B5NZ8, it costs $13.12 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Front cover of The End of Everything? Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the hardcover version of the book.

Amazon’s description of The End of Everything By Katie Mack

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2020

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY * THE WASHINGTON POST * THE ECONOMIST * NEW SCIENTIST * PUBLISHERS WEEKLY * THE GUARDIAN

From one of the most dynamic rising stars in astrophysics, an “engrossing, elegant” (The New York Times) look at five ways the universe could end, and the mind-blowing lessons each scenario reveals about the most important concepts in cosmology.

We know the universe had a beginning. With the Big Bang, it expanded from a state of unimaginable density to an all-encompassing cosmic fireball to a simmering fluid of matter and energy, laying down the seeds for everything from black holes to one rocky planet orbiting a star near the edge of a spiral galaxy that happened to develop life as we know it. But what happens to the universe at the end of the story? And what does it mean for us now?

Dr. Katie Mack has been contemplating these questions since she was a young student, when her astronomy professor informed her the universe could end at any moment, in an instant. This revelation set her on the path toward theoretical astrophysics.

Now, with lively wit and humor, she takes us on a mind-bending tour through five of the cosmos’s possible finales: the Big Crunch, Heat Death, the Big Rip, Vacuum Decay (the one that could happen at any moment!), and the Bounce. Guiding us through cutting-edge science and major concepts in quantum mechanics, cosmology, string theory, and much more, The End of Everything is a wildly fun, surprisingly upbeat ride to the farthest reaches of all that we know.

This is my five-star review for The End of Everything

The End of the Universe can be a lot of fun

Katie Mack’s timely (it’s 2020 after all) survey of the various ways the Universe might end, based on current physics, was a delightful read. It is an interesting and fun book. We learn about the Big Crunch (the Universe shrinking back), the Heat Death, or rather the high-entropy death, the Big Rip, Vacuum decay, or the “quantum bubble of death” if you want to call it that, and the “bounce”. 

To understand where the various ideas regarding the end of the Universe come from, you need to understand some of the physics and the cosmology. We learn something about CMB, or the Cosmic Microwave Background, Big Bang, cosmic inflation, Planck Time, GUTs, Nucleosynthesis, the standard model, de Sitter Space, black holes, electroweak symmetry breaking, the Higgs Boson and the Higgs field, multiverses, and much more.

Perhaps most importantly, we learn about dark matter and dark energy, which are important concepts that have greatly changed cosmology over the last few years. Chapter 2 on the Big Bang reminded me a lot about an old book by Stephen Weinberg, the first 3 minutes. However, Katie Mack puts a modern spin on it and goes much further beyond our Universe. I was intrigued to hear that it might be possible to communicate between different Universes in a multiverse using gravity, or gravity waves.

The book is written for laymen, and I found it to be between Neil De Grasse Tyson / Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking in difficulty level. The book covers a lot of concepts and theories but does so concisely, simply and not in a mathematical way. Not so simply though that it is misleading.

I am an Engineer with an undergrad degree in physics so I may not be the best person to judge whether this is an easy read for laymen, but I believe it is. I am very interested in these kinds of topics, and I read all popularized books on cosmology, modern physics, the standard model, that I can find. This was one of the most fun books that I’ve ever read.

Back cover of The End of Everything? Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the hardcover version of the book.

Would you like to travel in time into the future to see the end of the Universe?

To see the Super Facts click here

Do You Ever See Wild Animals

Yes, I see wild animals every day despite living in a large city (Dallas). I see squirrels, rabbits, coyote, bats, birds of all kinds, crows, owls, hawks, pelicans, blue jays, mockingbirds, rats and mice, and I see snakes every now and then. Not too long ago we had a rat snake in the sink. I live in Texas and here we have 116 snake species.

Daily writing prompt
Do you ever see wild animals?
View all responses

I guess insects are animals too, and we have cicadas and crickets, wolf spiders, spider wasps of various kinds, including mud daubers and tarantula hawks, and sometimes I see them inside the house. We also have a lot of coyotes in the neighborhood. A few years ago, a coyote ran up to me as I was walking my two small dogs, a pug named Daisy and a Japanese Chin named Ryu. I was worried about my dogs, so I stared him down, and he ran off.

Wild Coyote – (Canis latrans) Stock Photo ID: 1629174541 by Tory Kallman

Every now and then we leave the city and there’s plenty of wild animals in the countryside. Two days ago, we visited a dark spot in Oklahoma. A dark spot is an exceptionally dark place intended for sky watching. I saw a skunk in the middle of the night. But we’ve seen foxes, coyotes, deer, antelope, wild turkeys, turkey vultures, wild pigs, bobcats, eagles, fish of all kinds, and many other types of animals. In the past we’ve also gone fishing and hunting and we’ve seen many wild animals that way.

We’ve also visited national parks, for example, Yellow Stone and Grand Teton where we’ve seen grizzly bears, black bears, cinnamon bears, wolves, bison, elk, moose, prong horn, big horn sheep, marmots, whizzle pigs, and much more. I can add that sometimes we also visit other countries where we’ve seen more exotic wild animals, kangaroos, crocodiles, sharks, koalas, lynx, dolphins, etc.

Bison in Yellowstone National Park
Elk in in Yellowstone National Park, photo by me
My daughter caught a rainbow trout in Jackson Lake in Grand Teton National Park, photo by me.
Grizzly bear in Grand Teton National Park, photo by Gabriel Goncalves, a fellow traveler.
Grizzly bear cubs in Grand Teton National Park, photo by Gabriel Goncalves, a fellow traveler.
A whistle pig in Yellowstone National Park. Photo by me.
A marmot in Yellowstone National Park. Photo by me.
A grey wolf in Yellowstone National Park.
A moose in Yellowstone National Park.
A tarantula hawk (wasp) is stinging a tarantula and then dragging it. This was in Oklahoma. Photo by either me or my friend Mark Segal.

To see the Super Facts click here

The Giant Bubble of No Space

Cosmology is the science of the origin and development of the universe, and this post is about a book on Cosmology, “What’s Eating the Universe?: And Other Cosmic Questions” by Paul Davies.

What’s eating the Universe is one of the 30 questions answered in this book. It refers to the mysterious gigantic super-voids we’ve found. Could they be the result of collisions with other universes? Could they be the result of expanding giant bubbles with no space at all in them? That’s not just empty bubbles with empty space, but bubbles in which space itself is missing. Try to imagine that. Some of the 30 questions have answers, others just feature several guesses.

The goal of this blog is to create a list of what I call super facts. Important facts that we know to be true and yet they are surprising, shocking or disputed among non-experts. Super facts are special facts that a well-informed person may want to know.

However, I sometimes create posts that are not super facts but just interesting information, such as this one. What’s eating the Universe is a relatively short and easy read. I bought the hardback version of it.

  • Hardcover –  Publisher : University of Chicago Press; First Edition (September 22, 2021), ISBN-10 : 022681629X, ISBN-13 : 978-0226816296, 208 pages, item weight : 12.2 ounces, dimensions : ‎5.67 x 0.71 x 8.58 inches, it costs $19.84 on Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
  • Paperback –  Publisher : University of Chicago Press; First Edition (September 30, 2022), ISBN-10 : 0226823873, ISBN-13 : 978-0226823874, 183 pages, item weight : 9.6 ounces, dimensions : ‎ ‏ : 5.5 x 0.46 x 8.5 inches, it costs $15.67 on Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
  • eTextBook –  Publisher : University of Chicago Press; First edition (September 22, 2021), ASIN : B096L2WP51, 172 pages, it costs $14.89 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Front cover of What’s Eating the Universe? Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the hardcover version of the book.

Amazon’s description of the book

Combining the latest scientific advances with storytelling skills unmatched in the cosmos, an award-winning astrophysicist and popular writer leads us on a tour of some of the greatest mysteries of our universe.

In the constellation of Eridanus, there lurks a cosmic It’s as if something has taken a huge bite out of the universe. But what is the culprit? The hole in the universe is just one of many puzzles keeping cosmologists busy. Supermassive black holes, bubbles of nothingness gobbling up space, monster universes swallowing others—these and many other bizarre ideas are being pursued by scientists.

Due to breathtaking progress in astronomy, the history of our universe is now better understood than the history of our own planet. But these advances have uncovered some startling riddles. In this electrifying new book, renowned cosmologist and author Paul Davies lucidly explains what we know about the cosmos and its enigmas, exploring the tantalizing—and sometimes terrifying—possibilities that lie before us.

As Davies guides us through the audacious research offering mind-bending solutions to these and other mysteries, he leads us up to the greatest outstanding conundrum of Why does the universe even exist in the first place? And how did a system of mindless, purposeless particles manage to bring forth conscious, thinking beings? Filled with wit and wonder, What’s Eating the Universe? is a dazzling tour of cosmic questions, sure to entertain, enchant, and inspire us all.

This is my five-star review for What’s Eating the Universe?: And Other Cosmic Questions.

Cosmology explained the easy way

This book is organized into 30 cosmological questions that the author is answering or clarifying. His explanations are naturally not in depth but high level and easy to understand for anyone with an interest in the topic. He manages to keep the topic fascinating and the book is a real page turner. I read the book in a little bit more than one day.

The book discusses cosmology, relativity, the standard model, black holes, the big bang, the CMB, dark matter, dark energy, multiverses and the fate of our Universe, extraterrestrials, and much more, and he gives us insight into the very latest discoveries and views of cosmology.

I especially enjoyed reading chapter 20 & 21 “Can the Universe Come from Nothing” and “How Many Universes Are There”. He tells us that most cosmologists he knows believe there are infinitely many universes. One model is eternal inflation, a space/time mechanism beyond our universe that keeps causing new universes to bubble up and initially expand rapidly, but there are other models. I was surprised that he didn’t mention Roger Penrose’s model, cycles of time, with one Universe giving rise to another (after full expansion and heat death).

However, if there’s only one Universe and time came into existence with it (singularity) it doesn’t help those who want to insert a creation moment. If time didn’t exist before the big bang, the concept of a prior physical cause is meaningless. Asking what was before the big bang is like asking what lies north of the North Pole.

I also especially enjoyed reading chapter 30 “What’s New on the Cosmic Horizon” in which he lists mysteries and recent exciting discoveries, the cold patch in Eridanus (CMB), the mystery with the Hubble constant, what’s beyond the standard model, the prospect of top-down models, etc. Well, all the chapters were interesting.

This book is a quick and easy summary of what’s going on in cosmology. It’s accessible and engrossing writing and the straightforward organization make the book a great introduction to the topic. I highly recommend this book.

Back cover of “What’s Eating the Universe?” Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the paperback version of the book.

Finally, a list of the 30 questions

  • Journey from the Edge of Time
  • The search for the key to the Universe
  • Why is it dark at Night?
  • The Big Bang
  • Where is the Center of the Universe?
  • Why the Cosmos is Actually Fairly Simple?
  • What is the Speed of Space?
  • What is the Shape of Space?
  • Explaining the Cosmic Big Fix
  • Most of our Universe is Missing
  • What is Dark Energy
  • Where Does Matter Come From?
  • Gravity Conquers All
  • Warped Time and Black Holes
  • Is Time Travel Possible?
  • What is the Source of Time’s Puzzling Arrow?
  • The Black Hole Paradox
  • A Theory of Everything?
  • Fossils from the Cosmic Dawn
  • Can the Universe Come from Nothing?
  • How Many Universes Are There?
  • The Goldilocks Enigma
  • What’s Eating the Universe?
  • Is the Universe Actually a Botched Job?
  • Are We Alone?
  • Is ET in Our Backyard?
  • Why Am I Living Now?
  • The Fate of Our Universe
  • Is There a Meaning to It All?
  • What’s New on the Cosmic Horizon?

To see the Super Facts click here

The Surprising Monty Hall Problem

Superfact 22: Suppose you’re on a game show, and you’re given the choice between three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the other two doors there are goats. You want to pick the car. You pick a door, and the host, who knows what’s behind the three doors, opens another door revealing a goat. Now the question is, is it to your advantage to switch door choice? The answer is yes. And that is the surprising Monty Hall Problem.

The Monty Hall gameshow Three Doors Problem. There is a car behind one door, and goats behind the other two. You pick a door. Monty Hall, the gameshow host, opens one of the other doors and it has a goat. Should you change your choice of door? Yes, you should. But why? – Monty Hall Problem Stock Illustration ID: 1881849649 by SATYA94.

It is quite common to argue that it does not matter. You don’t know what is behind the two remaining doors so it should be 50/50 right? In a test involving 228 people only 13% chose to switch. However, you should switch.

Monty Hall, the gameshow host of the Let’s Make a Deal television game show, knows where the car is, so he never chooses the door with the car. And by curating the remaining two doors for you, he raises the odds that switching is always a good bet. By switching your choice, you have a 2/3 chance of winning the car but if you stay with your original choice, you only have a 1/3 chance of winning the car.

So why is this a super-fact? First, we know it is true. It is mathematically proven and experimentally verified that switching door is the best choice. Secondly, this was widely contested and is still surprising to people. Finally, probabilistic thinking is the key to being rational and making good decisions. This fact is true, important and disputed and thus a super fact.

One way of viewing the situation is by noting that there is a 1/3 chance that the car is behind any door that the contestant picks and a 2/3 chance that the car is behind one of the other two doors.

The car has a 1/3 chance of being behind the contestant’s pick and a 2/3 chance of being behind the other two doors. Picture from Wikimedia commons public domain.

If Monty opens one of the two doors that the contestant did not pick there is still a 1/3 probability that the car is behind the door the contestant picked and a 2/3 chance that the car is behind one of the other two doors. However, one of the doors that the contestant did not pick is now known to feature a goat. Therefore, the probability that the car is behind the other door is 2/3.

The host opens a door. The odds for the two sets don’t change but the odds become 0 for the open door and 2/3 for the closed door. Picture from Wikimedia commons public domain.

The table below is probably (no pun intended) a better way of illustrating the situation. In the table door 1 is the door designated to be the contestant’s first choice. Monty opens one of the remaining doors that has a goat behind it.

Behind door 1Behind door 2Behind door 3Result if staying at door 1Result if switching to door offered.
GoatGoatCarWins goatWins Car
GoatCarGoatWins goatWins Car
CarGoatGoatWins CarWins goat

There are various other ways of explaining the situation including Steven Pinker’s approach. It is easy to test this is real life and repeated experiments and simulations shown that if you switch you have a 2/3 chance of winning.

As an example of the controversy this probability puzzle caused was Marily Savant’s column in Parade Magazine. As a side note, Marilyn Vos Savant is the person who has the highest recorded intelligence quotient (IQ) as stated in the Guinness Book of Records. In response to a question regarding the Monty Hall game show problem she wrote that you should switch. She received letters from 10,000 readers disputing this, including 1,000 with PhDs. In the long run she prevailed.

To see the other Super Facts click here