mmcirvin: Some children’s music "We listen to a LOT of children’s music these days. Maybe a little too much sometimes. On the other hand, we’re fortunate to live in an age of relatively listenable children’s music with some adult appeal. Here’s some stuff Jorie’s been hearing lately:" (tags: blogs music kid-stuff) Acephalous: Batman as a… Continue reading links for 2009-02-21
Author: Chad Orzel
Why We Immunize
Over at Making Light, Jim Macdonald has a response to the anti-vaccination movement, taking his cue from the Navy: There’s a manual that every Navy gunnery officer is required to read or re-read every year: OP 1014; Ordnance Safety Precautions: Their Origin and Necessity. It’s a collection of stories about, and photographs of, spectacular accidents… Continue reading Why We Immunize
Course Report: Formal Quantum Mechanics
I left off last time with a brief introduction to uncertainty, followed by two classes worth of background, both mathematical and Mathematica. Class 15 picked up the physics again, starting with an explanation of the connection between the Fourier theorem and uncertainty, namely that any attempt to construct a wavefunction that has both particle and… Continue reading Course Report: Formal Quantum Mechanics
links for 2009-02-20
Abstruse Goose » How Stuff Works "Science killed my unicorns." (tags: science comics silly abstruse-goose) Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / Hugo Nominations Including a few links to recommended-reading lists. (tags: movies SF literature books hugos) Physics and Physicists: What Did Galileo Actually Do? Most People Don’t Know "The name "Galileo"… Continue reading links for 2009-02-20
Thursday Baby Blogging 021909
For this week’s Baby Blogging, SteelyKid couldn’t decide whether to show off her ability to grab Appa or her ability to touch her toes, so she tried to do both at once: The color scheme of this outfit is undoubtedly going to lead to some irritating interactions with people in malls (“Why is her outfit… Continue reading Thursday Baby Blogging 021909
Journalists Are Amplifiers
A few days ago, Bee put up a post titled Do We Need Science Journalists?, linking back to Bora’s enormous manifesto from the first bit of the Horgan-Johnson bloggingheads kerfuffle. My first reaction was “Oh, God, not again…” but her post did make me think of one thing, which is illustrated by Peter Woit’s latest… Continue reading Journalists Are Amplifiers
links for 2009-02-19
slacktivist: Why I’m peeved "House-of-cards fundamentalism allows for no distinctions between babies and bathwater, between the central tenets of the faith and the adiaphora and error. So once one part of this belief system begins to collapse — as it inevitably will since young-earth creationism is disprovable — then it all has to go." (tags:… Continue reading links for 2009-02-19
Random Physics We Don’t Understand
I’ve already mentioned two of the program items I was on at Boskone (global warming and quantum physics for dogs). I should at least comment on the other two, “Physics: What We Don’t Understand” and “Is Science Addicted to Randomness?” They both featured me and Geoff Landis, but other than that were very different. “Physics:… Continue reading Random Physics We Don’t Understand
links for 2009-02-18
US LHC Blog » Higgs Hunting News "Depending on what the mass of the Higgs boson is, it will decay into other particles that are easier or harder for an experiment to detect. So for example if the mass turns out to be about 170 GeV, the Tevatron experiments say their chances are almost 100… Continue reading links for 2009-02-18
Is It Better to Be Lucky or Good?
My cold from last week has shifted into a bit of bronchitis (and here I thought my virus-fighting strategy of staying up really late drinking beer would clear everything up), so I’m kind of groggy and lethargic. And I have book edits to work on, which precludes taking a long time to write blog posts… Continue reading Is It Better to Be Lucky or Good?