In the basement, across the hall from my lab, there are three plastic-covered collages made up of formula sheets from long-ago exams. One of my colleagues let the students in a Physics for Pre-Meds class write whatever they wanted on one sheet of paper to bring into the final, and made art from the collected […]
Month: February 2009
links for 2009-02-23
What will be your Edward Gorey death? – Quiz | Get More Quizzes at Quizilla "We are all going to die. Why not die in an Edwary Gorey way. Find out how which Gashlycrumb Tinies child you will die like." (tags: silly literature books internet) Cocktail Party Physics: when satellites collide, it’s really a drag […]
Mr. Earbrass Writes a Pop-Science Book
Holding TUH not very neatly done up in pink butcher’s paper, whcih was all he could find in a last-minute search before leaving to catch his train for London, Mr Earbrass arrives at the offices of his publishers to deliver it. The stairs look oddly menacing, as though he might break a leg on one […]
Asteroids Killed Newspapers, GIF at 11
This week’s Science Saturday on bloggingheads.tv features Carl Zimmer and Phil “Bad Astronomy” Plait: It’s a wide-ranging conversation, covering topics in astronomy, why people believe crazy things, how the Internet can help, and the death of newspapers and their eventual replacement by blogs. Plait is really energetic (he spends a couple of minutes talking over […]
links for 2009-02-22
Cocktail Party Physics: science, politics, and getting it wrong "One surefire way to panic the heck out of people is to mention nuclear bombs and radical Islam in the same sentence. I dunno about you, but I kinda had a mini-freakout when I read about the amount of enriched uranium the United Nations says that […]
Go Figure
Maryland 88, North Carolina 85 (WARNING: Auto-playing video): Greivis Vasquez did something no Maryland player had done since 1987, and the Terrapins pulled off an upset that was almost as remarkable. Vasquez had a career-high 35 points and 11 rebounds and 10 assists — Maryland’s first triple-double in 22 years — and the Terrapins rallied […]
What I’m Planning to Nominate for the Hugos
We are now one week out from the deadline for Hugo Nominations. I’m eligible to nominate this year, and while a couple of past requests for recommendations have failed to generate anything, I thought I’d throw up a preliminary look at my ballot in hopes of bringing in a few recommendations:
links for 2009-02-21
mmcirvin: Some children’s music "We listen to a LOT of children’s music these days. Maybe a little too much sometimes. On the other hand, we’re fortunate to live in an age of relatively listenable children’s music with some adult appeal. Here’s some stuff Jorie’s been hearing lately:" (tags: blogs music kid-stuff) Acephalous: Batman as a […]
Why We Immunize
Over at Making Light, Jim Macdonald has a response to the anti-vaccination movement, taking his cue from the Navy: There’s a manual that every Navy gunnery officer is required to read or re-read every year: OP 1014; Ordnance Safety Precautions: Their Origin and Necessity. It’s a collection of stories about, and photographs of, spectacular accidents […]
Course Report: Formal Quantum Mechanics
I left off last time with a brief introduction to uncertainty, followed by two classes worth of background, both mathematical and Mathematica. Class 15 picked up the physics again, starting with an explanation of the connection between the Fourier theorem and uncertainty, namely that any attempt to construct a wavefunction that has both particle and […]