nanoscale views: What is a polaron? "One common example of a quasiparticle is the polaron. When a charge carrier (an electron or hole) is placed into a solid, the surrounding ions can interact with it (e.g., positive ions will be slightly attracted to a negatively charged carrier). The ions can adjust their positions slightly, balancing… Continue reading links for 2009-01-25
Author: Chad Orzel
“Must-Read” SF Novels
Via a bunch of people, but most directly Matt Ruff, the Guardian has published a list of “1000 Novels Everyone Must Read“. Which has triggered the usual flurry of procrastinatory blog posts indicating which books from the science fiction and fantasy sub-list one has and hasn’t read. I have other things I really ought to… Continue reading “Must-Read” SF Novels
Eating Without Pain in Grad School
Over at Neurotopia, the Evil Monkey is offering advice on how to earn extra money in graduate school: The key to more than mere culinary survival in graduate school is to volunteer for research studies. I took part in more projects than I could count. Some don’t pay squat. I once spent 2 hours a… Continue reading Eating Without Pain in Grad School
links for 2009-01-24
McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Sestina: How to Build a Sestina Template in Microsoft Excel. " Open a new Excel workbook. In cell B1, write your title. Leave row 2 blank. In cells A3 through A8, place the letters A through F. These letters are the cues for your repeating words (teleutons). Leave row 9 blank to… Continue reading links for 2009-01-24
Course Report: General Relativity and Black-Body Radiation
The last course report covered the first six classes of the relativity unit. This week, we had the final two relativity lectures, and today was the start of quantum mechanics.
Belated Baby Blogging 012309
Baby Blogging is late this week, because SteelyKid has come down with the cold virus that’s going around the JCC day care center. Snotty, crying, coughing babies aren’t all that photogenic. I finally got a decent picture of her emerging from her sling after a two-hour nap: It’s a little tough to say whether the… Continue reading Belated Baby Blogging 012309
Falling Into Atomville
The Physics and Astronomy colloquium this week was by Jill Linz from Skidmore, talking about a couple of physics outreach programs she’s worked on. This being right up my alley, I made it a point to get in early enough to see the colloquium (I spent the morning at home with the sick SteelyKid, and… Continue reading Falling Into Atomville
links for 2009-01-23
Steven Chu Addresses the National Labs | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine "The new Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, addressed the national labs in an all-hands video transmission today. I was not there, but my colleague and friend Rob Roser at Fermilab was there, and sent me a very nice bulleted summary. " (tags: science… Continue reading links for 2009-01-23
The Prestige for Ytterbium: Quantum Teleportation with Separated Atoms
My graduate alma mater made some news this week, with a new quantum teleportation experiment in which they “teleport” the state of one ytterbium ion to another ytterbium ion about a meter away. That may not sound like much, but it’s the first time anybody has done this with ions in two completely separate traps,… Continue reading The Prestige for Ytterbium: Quantum Teleportation with Separated Atoms
Academic Poll Results: Classroom Atmosphere
Here are the results of yesterday’s poll, as of about 10pm Eastern. Blue bars are the fraction of respondents saying that a given behavior (wearing hats, eating in class, drinking in class, leaving class to go to the bathroom) was acceptable, red bars the fraction saying it was unacceptable: You can also see the results… Continue reading Academic Poll Results: Classroom Atmosphere