Last week’s series of posts on the hardware needed for laser cooling and trapping experiments dealt specifically with laser-cooling type experiments. It’s possible, though, to make cold atoms without using laser cooling, using a number of techniques I described in two posts back in January. Those didn’t go into the hardware required, though, so what’s… Continue reading What Do You Need to Make Cold Atoms? Appendix: “No-Laser” Methods
Author: Chad Orzel
Links for 2010-08-16
Sex between adolescents in romantic relationships is often harmless to their academics “The context in which adolescent sexual activity occurs can substantially moderate the negative relationship between sexual intercourse and education, according to research to be presented at the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association. “Compared to abstinence, sexual intercourse in committed romantic… Continue reading Links for 2010-08-16
Guess-the-Lyrics: Unusual Rhyme Edition
A slightly different twist on the occasional guess-the-lyrics game. The following list gives pairs of rhyming words from a song that I think can be used to identify a specific song. So, for example, the pair: diplomat/ Siamese cat identifies “Like a Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan, thanks to the lines: You used to ride… Continue reading Guess-the-Lyrics: Unusual Rhyme Edition
New Physics Blogs
A couple of new-to-me but good physics blogs to point out this week: All That Matters by Joerg Heber. This looks like it will be updated weekly-ish, and has a couple of good entries, including a nice write-up of an ultrafast laser experiment that I had flagged to write about before I got distracted by… Continue reading New Physics Blogs
Links for 2010-08-15
YouTube – Beat It + epic Crazy Chinese Omnipotent China red army The Internet is a very silly place, but I’m glad we have it. (tags: video music world silly internet youtube) Why Does College Cost So Much? – Forbes.com “Instead of holding up a magnifying glass to the industry, we take an aerial view.… Continue reading Links for 2010-08-15
Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik [Library of Babel]
Tongues of Serpents is the nth book in the Temeraire series started with His Majesty’s Dragon (in the US, anyway), and another “Meh” review from me. In this case, this is probably less to do with the book itself than with the fact that I am not really in the target demographic for this book.… Continue reading Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik [Library of Babel]
Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold [Library of Babel]
I don’t believe the actual book is out yet, but you can get an electronic Advance Reading copy of the Nth Miles Vorkosigan book, Cryoburn already. Kate picked up a copy, and while she hasn’t gotten around to it yet, I read it this week while putting SteelyKid to bed. The book is another “Lord… Continue reading Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold [Library of Babel]
Links for 2010-08-14
Shtetl-Optimized » Blog Archive » Eight Signs A Claimed Pâ NP Proof Is Wrong “So, in the future, how can you decide whether a claimed Pâ NP proof is worth reading? I’ll now let you in on my magic secrets (which turn out not to be magic or secret at all). The thing not to do is… Continue reading Links for 2010-08-14
Live Music Poll
Over at the Whatever, one of Scalzi’s guest bloggers has posted a ginormous list of upcoming live music shows in the DC area. This makes me sad, because when I used to live in the DC area, I was a grad student, and couldn’t afford to go to any of the dozens of great concerts… Continue reading Live Music Poll
What Do You Need to Make Cold Atoms? Part 3: Test and Measurement
The third category in our look at lab apparatus, after vacuum hardware and lasers and optics is the huge collection of electronic gear that we use to control the experiments. I’ll borrow the sales term “test and measurement” as a catch-all description, though this is really broader than what you’ll usually find in that category.… Continue reading What Do You Need to Make Cold Atoms? Part 3: Test and Measurement