It’s been a really long time since I’ve done a Dorky Poll here, but I’m pretty fried at the moment, so here’s a kind of mathematical personality test: two numbers that do not uniquely define a sequence, but suggest some possibilities that reveal your innate character type and/or appropriate career path: Personality Test: What number… Continue reading Dorky Poll: Rorschach Numbers
Author: Chad Orzel
On Mentoring
I forget who pointed me to the Tenure She Wrote piece on mentoring, but it’s something I’ve been turning over for a couple of weeks now. Probably because I became aware of it right around the time my two summer students started work last week. It keeps colliding with other conversations as well, though, so… Continue reading On Mentoring
The Making of a Sign Error
One thing I left out of the making-of story about the squeezed state BEC paper last week happened a while after publication– a few months to a year later. I don’t quite recall when it was– I vaguely think I was still at Yale, but I could be misremembering. It’s kind of amusing, in an… Continue reading The Making of a Sign Error
Photons Are Here to Stay, Deal With It
I spend a lot of time promoting Rhett Allain’s Dot Physics blog, enough that some people probably wonder if I get a cut of his royalties (I don’t). I’m going to take issue with his latest, though, because he’s decided to revive his quixotic campaign against photons, or at least teaching about photons early in… Continue reading Photons Are Here to Stay, Deal With It
The Making of “Squeezed States in a Bose-Einstein Condensate”
Yesterday’s write-up of my Science paper ended with a vague promise to deal some inside information about the experiment. So, here are some anecdotes that you would need to have been at Yale in 1999-2000 to pick up. We’ll stick with the Q&A format for this, because why not? Why don’t we start with some… Continue reading The Making of “Squeezed States in a Bose-Einstein Condensate”
My Claim to Scientific Fame: “Squeezed States in a Bose-Einstein Condensate”
In Monday’s post on squeezed states, I mentioned that I really liked the question because I had done work on the subject. This is, in fact, my claim to scientific fame (well, before the talking-to-the-dog thing, anyway)– I’m the first author on a Science paper with more than 500 citations having to do with squeezed… Continue reading My Claim to Scientific Fame: “Squeezed States in a Bose-Einstein Condensate”
Think Like a Physicist
There was a flurry of discussion recently on campus about “critical thinking,” and how we sell that idea to prospective and current students. This was prompted by a recent report arguing for the importance of the humanities and social sciences (which I found really frustrating in ways that are neither surprising nor important for this… Continue reading Think Like a Physicist
What Is Squeezing?
In the Physics Blogging Request Thread the other day, I got a comment so good I could’ve planted it myself, from Rachel who asks: It’s a term I see used a lot but don’t really know what it means – what is a “squeezed state”? What does “squeezing” mean? (in a QM context of course…)… Continue reading What Is Squeezing?
Science Is Not Solitary
There was another round of the “who counts as a scientist?” debate recently, on Twitter and then on the Physics Focus blog. In between those, probably coincidentally (he doesn’t mention anything prompting it), Sean Carroll offered a three-step definition of science: Think of every possible way the world could be. Label each way an “hypothesis.”… Continue reading Science Is Not Solitary
See You Monday
The picture above shows the new sign on SteelyKid’s door. She had to ask us how to spell the words– she’s not five for another month, yet– but she is now the proud owner of a hand-lettered “DO NOT ENTER” sign for her bedroom. About half a dozen years earlier than I was hoping for…… Continue reading See You Monday