One of the many physics stories I haven’t had time to blog about recently is the demonstration of relativistic time effects using atomic clocks. I did mention a DAMOP talk about the experiment, but the actual paper was published in Science (and is freely available from the NIST Time and Frequency Division (PDF file), because… Continue reading How Do You Trap an Ion, Anyway?
Month: November 2010
Pre-Veterans Days
I usually have ESPN on as background noise in the morning, but I turned it off today because their increasingly fulsome tributes to Veterans Day were getting on my nerves. I’m all in favor of honoring the sacrifices made by members of the military, but a little decorum would be nice at the same time.… Continue reading Pre-Veterans Days
Links for 11-11-10
slacktivist: TF: Chairface Carpathia “The villain Nicolae Carpathia probably reminds of more than any other is Chairface Chippendale, from one of my favorite episodes of The Tick — a warped parody of superhero comics. Chairface, a supervillain, constructs a giant heat ray he plans to use to carve his name on the moon. Our heroes,… Continue reading Links for 11-11-10
Academic Poll: Course Selection
We’ve just recently completed pre-registration for Winter term classes, so I’ve been thinking a bit about why students do and do not sign up for things. Thus, a poll: You are a college student considering an elective class in your major, and you see it has a lab. Your reaction is:survey software Feel free to… Continue reading Academic Poll: Course Selection
Bakery Poll: The _____ on the Cake
Having posted not one but two snarky political entries in recent days, I feel like I owe the Internet a couple of ResearchBlogging posts to make up for it. It’s the last week of classes here, though, which means I have a lot of frantic work to do. Thus, a frivolous poll inspired by the… Continue reading Bakery Poll: The _____ on the Cake
Links for 2010-11-10
Twinkie diet helps nutrition professor lose 27 pounds – CNN.com “Twinkies. Nutty bars. Powdered donuts. For 10 weeks, Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, ate one of these sugary cakelets every three hours, instead of meals. To add variety in his steady stream of Hostess and Little Debbie snacks, Haub… Continue reading Links for 2010-11-10
How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update
I haven’t been doing these as regularly as I was earlier in the year, but here are a few interesting bits of news about How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: LA FISICA SPIEGATA AL MIO CANE, is now available. That’s the Italian edition, which Google translates to something like “Explaining Physics to My Dog.”… Continue reading How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update
Calculus Saves the Economy!
I’m taking a bit of flak in comments to my silly Bob Dylan post from Sunday, with various right-wingers spontaneously popping in to tell me that JFK cut taxes. My initial reaction to this is to think that supposing a perfect equivalence between JFK cutting the top rate from 90% to 70% during a time… Continue reading Calculus Saves the Economy!
Links for 2010-11-09
Moving Toward Quantum Computing – Science in 2011 – NYTimes.com “In 1981 the physicist Richard Feynman speculated about the possibility of “tiny computers obeying quantum mechanical laws.” He suggested that such a quantum computer might be the best way to simulate real-world quantum systems, a challenge that today is largely beyond the calculating power of… Continue reading Links for 2010-11-09
Physics Job Market: Same As It Ever Was
The American Institute of Physics has a statistics division that produces lots of interesting analyses of issues relevant to the discipline. A couple of them were released just recently, including one on the job status of new Ph.D.’s (PDF). The key graph from the report is this one: The text of the report talks up… Continue reading Physics Job Market: Same As It Ever Was