Month: June 2013

Of Controversies and Clocks

Schematic of an atom interferometer or clock comparison, from Hohensee et al., http://arxiv.org/abs/1102.4362

A few months back, I got a call from a writer at a physics magazine, asking for comments on a controversy within AMO physics. I read a bunch of papers, and really didn’t quite understand the problem; not so much the issue at stake, but why it was so heated. When I spoke to the… Continue reading Of Controversies and Clocks

Few-Body Systems: Cooler Than You Might Think

Figure 2 from the arxiv version of the preparation paper.

Hey, dude? Yeah, what’s up? I’m not normally the one who initiates this, but I was wondering: When you were at DAMOP last week, did you see any really neat physics? Oh, sure, tons of stuff. It was a little thinner than some past meetings– a lot of the Usual Suspects didn’t make the trip–… Continue reading Few-Body Systems: Cooler Than You Might Think

Affirmation Means Employment

Top cited papers in a search on my name at the Harvard astrophysics database.

I saw a bunch of people yesterday tweeting approval of John Hawks’s complaint about academic timidity when it comes to blogging: The bottom line is: People need to decide if they want to be heard, or if they want to be validated. I have long been an associate editor at PLoS ONE, and once I… Continue reading Affirmation Means Employment

The Quirks of Scientific Public Speaking

Title slide from one of my research talks.

As previously noted, I spent most of last week at the 2013 DAMOP meeting, where I listened to a whole bunch of talks. At some point, I was listening to a talk, and said “I bet this guy hasn’t given a lot of these before.” What was the give-away? The fact that he almost never… Continue reading The Quirks of Scientific Public Speaking

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down to the River to Pray

I’ve just emerged from a week in the Incredible College Simulator(*), first spending a week at DAMOP and then the weekend at my 20th college reunion at Williams, so while I have physics stuff I ought to write about, my brain has temporarily turned to goo. Also, I have a week’s worth of administrative crap… Continue reading The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down to the River to Pray

Experiment and Theory in the Popular Imagination

A little while back, I posted about the pro-theorist bias in popular physics, and Ashutosh Jogalekar offers a long and detailed response, which of course was posted on a day when I spent six hours driving to Quebec City for a conference. Sigh. Happily, ZapperZ and Tom at Swans On Tea offer more or less… Continue reading Experiment and Theory in the Popular Imagination

Angry Birds, Furious Forces! by Rhett Allain

Book Cover, from Rhett Allain's Facebook page.

Rhett at Dot Physics departed ScienceBlogs before NAtional Geographic fully took over, but still managed to connect with their book division for a physics text. This is part of a series they’re doing tied in with the folks from Rovio, makers of the world’s most popular smart-phone time-waster, and, as the title suggests, it uses… Continue reading Angry Birds, Furious Forces! by Rhett Allain