Month: July 2009

links for 2009-07-09

Physics Buzz: Watch this! "Forget the cheesy narrator and hokey graphics. Wobble the camera like you’re Michel Gondry filming Eternal Sunshine. Ditch the pseudo-techno soundtrack that makes the kids shake their heads at you for trying to be hip, and go for something understated. Then you might have something as good as Colliding Particles. The… Continue reading links for 2009-07-09

Infinite Recurrence

I’m something like 100 pages ahead of the Infinite Summer spoiler line (page 283 as of last night), meaning that a lot of the stuff I’d like to discuss or see discussed isn’t fair game yet. I’m still greatly enjoying the re-read of Infinite Jest, though. As I’ve said before, this is a dangerous book… Continue reading Infinite Recurrence

…For Some Definition of Physical Reality

There’s a press release dated a week or two ago from Leiden University headlined “Physical reality of string theory demonstrated,” in an apparent bid to make Peter Woit’s head explode. The release itself is really pretty awful, with poorly explained and irrelevant pictures, and a really confusing description of what this is really about (in… Continue reading …For Some Definition of Physical Reality

links for 2009-07-08

LIGO: the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory A comprehensive review article on LIGO, free online for a limited time. (tags: articles science gravity astronomy physics relativity precision-measurement) Never build a relationship on books | Books | guardian.co.uk "I don’t know if Borders will actually be making recommendations for dates in the same way as they recommend… Continue reading links for 2009-07-08

Ad Astra Per Aspera II: The Climbening

A bunch of heavy stuff on the blog today– quantum physics, insulting journalists, political activism. Here’s a cute baby video to lighten the mood: This is Steelyid demonstrating her climbing prowess, just in case anybody suspected that Saturday’s filler picture was staged. She can actually go quite a bit faster than this, but she kept… Continue reading Ad Astra Per Aspera II: The Climbening

Scientist PACs and Judges

One of the most interesting suggestions made by Chris and Sheril in Unscientific America is the idea that science needs to play political hardball (page 158, in the endnotes): Why not form a nonpartisan science political action committee, or PAC, devoted to funding candidates who are either scientists themselves or who make science a strong… Continue reading Scientist PACs and Judges

Journalists Unclear on the Concept

No, this isn’t another “How dare those journalists muddle the explanation of some scientific topic” post. The concept here is journalism itself, as seen in Ed Yong’s discussion of different modes of science journalism. Writing about the recent World Conference of Science Journalists, he talks about some controversy over what “science journalism” actually means: Certainly,… Continue reading Journalists Unclear on the Concept

Entanglement by Accident

It’s been a while since we’ve had any good, solid physics content here, and I feel a little guilty about that. So here’s some high-quality (I hope) physics blogging, dealing with two recent(ish) papers from Chris Monroe’s group at the University of Maryland. The first is titled “Bell Inequality Violation with Two Remote Atomic Qubits”… Continue reading Entanglement by Accident