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The Number on the Wall: Why Physicists Call 137 Magic

I came to 137 the way most people come to it, by hearing it called a magic number and wanting to know whether the word was earned. My instinct with a claim like that is suspicion, because a working life spent around language and persuasion teaches you how easily a large word gets draped over a small thing. This time the suspicion did not survive the facts. The number turned out to be real in a way I had not expected, and the people most gripped by it have been some of the hardest-headed physicists who ever lived.

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Playing with your Fingers on an Electric Guitar

There’s nothing quite like playing the Blues guitar using your fingers.  It can be another matter entirely when you toss away your pick and play with only your fingers on an electric guitar.  Mark Knopfler is probably the best known, and most successful, “fingerstyle” electric guitarist of our generation.

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The D'Addario EXL115 Strings Review

After throwing on a set of Gretsch 11-49 strings on my Gretsch G5120, I decided to get my hands on some D’Addario EXL 115 strings for “Blues/Jazz Rock” and at .011, .014, .018, .028, .038 and .049 they’re quite a hefty string gauge and harder to bend than the Super Slinky set o’ nines I’ve been using from Ernie Ball.  I bought an EXL115 tenner pack because you get such a greater value buying in bulk and the price drops to around $3.00USD a set.

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Warren Haynes Electric Blues and Slide Guitar DVD Review

Warren Haynes — of The Allman Brothers Band — wants to teach you how to play Electric Blues and Slide guitar as part of Arlen Roth’s ongoing, and outstanding, Hot Licks video series.

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Sister Rosetta Tharpe Sings the Gospel Blues

Sister Rosetta Tharpe is a musical whirlwind of a stepping stone between Gospel music and The Blues.

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D'Addario EXL110 Electric Strings Review

Electric guitarists the world over are always on the search for the very best strings and I can tell you right now the best strings — forget value and pricing even though these strings are cheap — are the D’Addario EXL110.

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Adding Fake Sound to Electric Cars

We all know technology can kill us — but we must learn to leave behind our current, menacing, totems if we ever hope to stretch into the future of us to create a cleaner and quieter world. There is an idiotic move afoot to make electric cars as noisy as their prehistoric gas-guzzling ancestors.

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