This week’s Baby Blogging is in honor of SteelyKid’s continued growth: she had her six-month checkup on Wednesday, and has now officially exceeded the weight limit on the bassinet attachment to her porta-crib. We’ve had to lower her all the way down to the bottom of the crib, where she can look out at the… Continue reading Thursday Baby Blogging 020509
Author: Chad Orzel
The Swashbuckling Physicist’s Guide to Complex Numbers
Having mentioned this a few times in course reports, I thought I’d throw out a link to my lecture notes (PDF) on complex numbers. This is the one-class whirlwind review of complex numbers from defining i to Euler’s theorem about complex exponentials. To answer a slightly incredulous question from a commenter, this is necessary because… Continue reading The Swashbuckling Physicist’s Guide to Complex Numbers
Thank God for Barry Bonds
As you may or may not have heard, the evidence in the upcoming perjury trial of Barry Bonds was unsealed yesterday, and includes a number of positive drug tests. And, really, my main reaction was “Oh, thank God.” It’s not that I’m enthusiastic about hearing steroids-in-baseball talk again, but the alternative was most likely another… Continue reading Thank God for Barry Bonds
links for 2009-02-05
NY Times article on force and physics and football | Dot Physics "People say I am picky. Ok, sometimes I am. But somebody has to stand up for what is right and just. Maybe I am that person. Please stop using the word force if you donât know what it is. There. I said it.… Continue reading links for 2009-02-05
Don’t Let the Door Hit You in the Ass
The big news of the day from the world of politics is that President Obama plans to cap executive pay at banks that take bailout money in the next round of emergency cash payments. This is not popular with the executive class: “That is pretty draconian — $500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly… Continue reading Don’t Let the Door Hit You in the Ass
Lab Reports: Threat or Menace?
I got the last round of line edits on the book-in-progress Monday night after work, but I haven’t had a chance to do more than leaf through the pages. This is mostly because I had lab reports to grade– the second written report is due Sunday, and I needed to get comments back to the… Continue reading Lab Reports: Threat or Menace?
Course Report: Historical Quantum Mechanics
In the last report from my modern physics course, we wrapped up Relativity, and started into quantum mechanics, talking about black-body radiation and Planck’s quantum hypothesis. The next few classes continue the historical theme
links for 2009-02-04
Bruce Springsteen misreads the national mood in his halftime performance. – By Stephen Metcalf – Slate Magazine A desperately stupid article about the Super Bowl halftime show (tags: politics stupid society sports music) PHD Comics: Not a good sign "I should be done in a year…" (tags: academia comics silly) Doing Physics is a two… Continue reading links for 2009-02-04
Recommended SF Reading
Locus magazine has come out with its “Recommended Reading” list of science fiction and fantasy published in 2008. There are, as always, some annoying quirks– several of the books making the list have been published only in the UK or by small presses, so I’ve never even seen them– but it’s a reasonably good consensus… Continue reading Recommended SF Reading
Is There Anybody Out There?
The Arxiv blog highlights a post on John Scalzi’s favorite science question: the Fermi Paradox: We have little to guide us on the question of the existence intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. But the physicist Enrico Fermi came up with the most obvious question: if the universe is teeming with advanced civilizations, where are… Continue reading Is There Anybody Out There?