A lot of people have been blogging and Twittering about this subway map of science, which puts various branches of science in the place of the lines on the London Underground map, showing connections between them. It’s a huge graphic, but a kind of cool image. I do, however, have a problem with it, which… Continue reading Without Experiment, There Is No Theory
Month: August 2010
Backyard Fluid Dynamics Revisited
Back in July, I did a post looking at how the fountain in our ornamental backyard pond shoots higher when the level of the pond drops. I set up a simple model of the process, which worked surprisingly well, but I said at the time that I really needed more data to say whether that… Continue reading Backyard Fluid Dynamics Revisited
Why So Many Blogging Astronomers?
Over in Discover-land, Razib has a couple of posts about the content of science blogs, based on an analysis of the content of the top science blogs according to Wikio. Razib’s second post is sparked by a pointed question from the author of the original study: I’m now curious to find out why there are… Continue reading Why So Many Blogging Astronomers?
Bad Universe, No Biscuit
Sunday was a really long day around Chateau Steelypips, and I couldn’t see staying awake to watch the premiere of Phil Plait’s Bad Universe on the Discovery Channel, so I’m way late in writing about it. I DVRed it, though, and watched it last night. The theme of the premiere/ pilot was killer rocks from… Continue reading Bad Universe, No Biscuit
Links for 2010-08-31
slacktivist: The Clod and the Pebble and the politics of resentment “What happened was that 78 poor children whose fathers are incarcerated received free back-to-school supplies provided by three area churches. Their dads were permitted to be on hand to help present these presents, getting a rare chance to spend a few hours with their… Continue reading Links for 2010-08-31
Indirect Excitation Control: Ultrafast Quantum Gates for Single Atomic Qubits
Last week, John Baez posted a report on a seminar by Dzimitry Matsukevich on ion trap quantum information issues. In the middle of this, he writes: Once our molecular ions are cold, how can we get them into specific desired states? Use a mode locked pulsed laser to drive stimulated Raman transitions. Huh? As far… Continue reading Indirect Excitation Control: Ultrafast Quantum Gates for Single Atomic Qubits
Nobody Ever Remembers Being a Cow
There was a deeply silly New York Times article about “Past Life Regression” over the weekend: In one of his past lives, Dr. Paul DeBell believes, he was a caveman. The gray-haired Cornell-trained psychiatrist has a gentle, serious manner, and his appearance, together with the generic shrink décor of his office — leather couch, granite-topped… Continue reading Nobody Ever Remembers Being a Cow
Links for 2010-08-30
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Why experimentalists hate theorists. (tags: science silly cartoons comics) YouTube – Hitler and P = NP Why the hell am I paying you morons to use a f&#$*% brute force algorithm?! That blasted Russian Perelman can solve the Poincare conjecture. Why can’t you dimwits solve something as simple as finding the… Continue reading Links for 2010-08-30
SteelyKid Music Selection
We’re trying not to let SteelyKid watch a whole lot of tv, but we’ve taken to showing her YouTube videos of old Sesame Street and Muppet Show skits as a way to wind her down before bedtime. this, of course, has let to her demanding to watch videos any time one of us is anywhere… Continue reading SteelyKid Music Selection
Camera Lens Questions
I am planning to buy a telephoto lens for my camera. From time to time, I want to take pictures of the various critters Emmy chases in the back yard, and that would be a whole lot easier if I didn’t need to get so close to them. And, of course, I strongly suspect there… Continue reading Camera Lens Questions