Super Bowl Athletes Are Scientists At Work

I wrote up another piece about football for the Conversation, this time drawing on material from Eureka, explaining how great football players are using scientific thinking: Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman gets called a lot of things. He calls himself the greatest cornerback in the NFL (and Seattle fans tend to agree). Sportswriters and some… Continue reading Super Bowl Athletes Are Scientists At Work

Eureka on “Inquiry”

While I’ve managed to generate a lot of blog traffic talking about football, I sort of suck at turning that into book sales. Sigh. I am, however, continuing to do interviews in support of Eureka: discovering Your Inner Scientist, the most recent of which is this one with WICN’s Inquiry, hosted by Mark Lynch. This… Continue reading Eureka on “Inquiry”

Science Stories: One-Shots

The "Valentine's Day Monopole" signal.

(When I launched the Advent Calendar of Science Stories series back in December, I had a few things in mind, but wasn’t sure I’d get through 24 days. In the end, I had more than enough material, and in fact didn’t end up using a few of my original ideas. So I’ll do a few… Continue reading Science Stories: One-Shots

Science Story: Letters to Famous Physicists

Sin-Itiro Tomonaga and Satyendra Nath Bose.

(When I launched the Advent Calendar of Science Stories series back in December, I had a few things in mind, but wasn’t sure I’d get through 24 days. In the end, I had more than enough material, and in fact didn’t end up using a few of my original ideas. So I’ll do a few… Continue reading Science Story: Letters to Famous Physicists

Eureka: Discovering Your Inner (New) Scientist

Two new items about Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist: 1) WAMC has now posted the interview I did with Joe Donahue on The Roundtable. This was a fun interview, and covers a number of examples from the book, so I think gives you a really nice sense of what it’s all about. 2) There’s a… Continue reading Eureka: Discovering Your Inner (New) Scientist

Science Story: Night Owls

James Clerk Maxwell and Julian Schwinger. Photos from Wikimedia.

(When I launched the Advent Calendar of Science Stories series back in December, I had a few things in mind, but wasn’t sure I’d get through 24 days. In the end, I had more than enough material, and in fact didn’t end up using a few of my original ideas. So I’ll do a few… Continue reading Science Story: Night Owls

Eureka on the Roundtable Today Tomorrow

“Hey,” you say, “It’s been, like, a week and a half since you did a post flogging Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist. What gives?” Well, I’ve been kind of busy, and also the media world sort of goes into suspended animation over the stretch between Christmas and New Year’s. However, there’s publicity stuff in the… Continue reading Eureka on the Roundtable Today Tomorrow

Advent Calendar of Science Stories 24: You

SteelyKid and The Pip demonstrate the process of science.

When I launched this back at the start of December, I honestly wasn’t sure I would have enough good stories to make it through. I suspected I might end up going a week or two, then quietly letting the whole thing drop. As we come to the end, though, I’ve run out of days well… Continue reading Advent Calendar of Science Stories 24: You

Advent Calendar of Science Stories 23: Parity

Chien-Shiung Wu with some experimental apparatus circa 1963. Image from Wikimedia.

For the penultimate advent calendar of science stories post, we’ll turn to a great experimentalist with a great biography. This story also appears in Eureka: Discovering your Inner Scientist, but it’s too good not to re-use. Chien-Shiung Wu was born in china in 1912, at right around the time education of women was first legalized.… Continue reading Advent Calendar of Science Stories 23: Parity

Advent Calendar of Science Stories 22: Hazing

Willis Lamb in a lab, image from AIP.

One of the very best books I ran across in the process of doing research for Eureka is The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics by Robert P. Crease and Charles C. Mann. It’s an extremely detailed treatment of the development of quantum theory, and includes anecdotes that I haven’t seen elsewhere.… Continue reading Advent Calendar of Science Stories 22: Hazing