In 1967, a team of scientists hauled a big pile of gear– electronics, particle detectors, a giant slab of iron– into the burial chamber at the base of one of the pyramids at Giza. This sounds like a scene from a science fiction or fantasy novel– throw in the fact that their first attempt was… Continue reading Finding That There’s Nothing to Find
Month: October 2013
Individualists, Working Together
An article titled “Individualism: The legacy of great physicists,” by Ricardo Heras. crossed my various social media feeds a half-dozen times on Tuesday, so I finally broke down and read it, and I’m puzzled. The argument is very straightforward– single-author publications used to be common, now they’re not, this might indicate a lack of truly… Continue reading Individualists, Working Together
One, Two, Many, Lots: Investigating the Start of Many-Body Physics
Two papers with a similar theme crossed my social media feeds in the last couple of days. You might think this is just a weird coincidence, but I’m choosing to take it as a sign to write about them for the blog. So, what are these papers, and what’s the theme? One is the final… Continue reading One, Two, Many, Lots: Investigating the Start of Many-Body Physics
On Private Science Funding
A couple of weeks back, DougT won this year’s Nobel betting pool, and requested a post on the subject of funding of wacky ieas: could you comment on this: http://www.space.com/22344-elon-musk-hyperloop-technology-revealed.html and the phenomenon of the uber-rich funding science in general. It seems to me that there used to be more private funding of science, and… Continue reading On Private Science Funding
The Elusive Niskayuna Sloth
[Scene: In the car on the way from soccer to lunch at Five Guys. SteelyKid is in her car seat, studying the Halloween-themed temporary tattoos all over her arms.] SteelyKid: Do bats fly right-side-up, or upside-down? Daddy: From the bat’s point of view, it’s right side up more or less by definition. They do sleep… Continue reading The Elusive Niskayuna Sloth
Historical Physicist Halloween Costumes
It’s that time of year again when people start thinking about Halloween costumes– SteelyKid is apparently planning to re-use her Peter Pan outfit from last year– and the conceptual costumes post from a while back has proved enduringly popular at this time of year. If you’re not into conceptual art, though, maybe some historical cosplay… Continue reading Historical Physicist Halloween Costumes
Free, As In Energy
Via social media, John Novak cashes in a Nobel Betting Pool win from a while back, asking: Please explain to me the relationship between energy, entropy, and free energy. Like you would explain it to a two year old child. Why? There is a statistical algorithm called Expectation Maximization which is often explained in terms… Continue reading Free, As In Energy
I Want to Boot Some Head, Too
In the interest of household balance, I should note that while The Pip was home sick, SteelyKid had her first taekwondo class. She spent a week bugging us every day about wanting to go, and it falls entirely within the time of her after-school day care, so we said sure. Of course, on the actual… Continue reading I Want to Boot Some Head, Too
Sick Dude Day
The Pip has pinkeye. Again. This means he can’t go to day care for at least one day, which means I’m home with him for the morning, and Kate will tag in at lunchtime so I can go teach my class. This, in turn, means that you don’t get any substantive blogging today, because the… Continue reading Sick Dude Day
Quantum Erasure
When I posted congratulating the winner of this year’s Nobel betting pool, I received a gentle reminder in email that I’m a Bad Person and still haven’t done one of the posts I owe to the 2011 winners. Evan reminded me that he asked for something about the delayed-choice quantum eraser, so let’s talk about… Continue reading Quantum Erasure