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
Author: Chad Orzel
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
Miscellaneous Science Online Stuff
I was pleasantly surprised at how well the What does Science Online Want to Be? post was received– I kind of expected that to cause more anger than it did. It did prompt a lot of discussion, most of it during the dinner hour in Chateau Steelypips, so it was really hard for me to… Continue reading Miscellaneous Science Online Stuff
Old Thesis Club: The Hyperfine Structure and Zeeman Effect for Mercury Resonance Line 2536.52A by Leo Wilson Scott, 1932
Having spent a bunch of time talking about heavy stuff in the science blogging community, let’s unwind a bit and kick the week off with a look back at an old Master’s thesis. This one is from 1932, and is almost certainly a draft copy, because it’s extremely cheaply bound in cardboard with the title… Continue reading Old Thesis Club: The Hyperfine Structure and Zeeman Effect for Mercury Resonance Line 2536.52A by Leo Wilson Scott, 1932
What Does Science Online Want to Be?
The ongoing mess over Bora Zivkovic’s harassment of women writers in connection with his editorial role at Scientific American and Science Online has moved into the “What is to be done now?” phase. The most prominent and linkable of these are from Maryn McKenna and Kelly Hills, though I’ve also seen the edges of more… Continue reading What Does Science Online Want to Be?