Steve Hsu has a post comparing his hand-drawn diagrams to computer-generated ones that a journal asked for instead: He’s got a pretty decent case that the hand-drawn versions are better. Though a bit more work with the graphics software could make the computer ones better. This reminded me, though, of something I’ve always found interesting… Continue reading It Figures: The Historical Aesthetics of Scientific Publishing
Category: History of Science
A Brief History of Quantum Timekeeping
My course on the history and science of timekeeping has reached the home stretch, with students giving presentations in class for the remainder of the term. My portion of the course was wrapped up with two lectures on “quantum timkeeping,” as it were: a lecture on the development of quantum mechanics: History of Quantum Mechanics… Continue reading A Brief History of Quantum Timekeeping
Course Report: A Brief History of Timekeeping 03
It’s been a little while since I wrote up what I’ve been doing in my “Brief History of Timekeeping” class, because I was out of town, and then catching up from being out of town. Some of this material has already appeared here, though, so I can hopefully catch up a lot of stuff in… Continue reading Course Report: A Brief History of Timekeeping 03
Thursday Eratosthenes Blogging: Measuring Latitude and Longitude with a Sundial
As I keep saying in various posts, I’m teaching a class on timekeeping this term, which has included discussion of really primitive timekeeping devices like sundials, as well as a discussion of the importance of timekeeping for navigation. To give students an idea of how this works, I arranged an experimental demonstration, coordinated with Rhett… Continue reading Thursday Eratosthenes Blogging: Measuring Latitude and Longitude with a Sundial
Critical Pronunciation Poll
I’m using Dava Sobel’s Longitude this week in my timekeeping class. The villain of the piece, as it were, is the Reverend Dr. Nevil Maskelyne, who promoted an astronomical method for finding longitude, and played a major role in delaying the payment to John Harrison for his marine chronometers. It’s a good story, with lots… Continue reading Critical Pronunciation Poll
The Advent Calendar of Physics: Schrödinger
Newton’s birthday (in the Julian calendar) is Sunday, so we’re in the final days of the advent calendar. Which means it’s time for the equations that are least like anything Newton did, such as today’s: This is the Schrödinger equation from non-relativistic quantum mechanics. If you want to determine the quantum state of an object… Continue reading The Advent Calendar of Physics: Schrödinger
The Advent Calendar of Physics: Hydrogen
Today’s equation in our march to Newton’s birthday is actually a tiny bit out of order, historically speaking: This is the Rydberg formula for the wavelengths of the spectral lines in hydrogen (and hydrogen-like ions), with R a constant having the appropriate units, and the two n‘s being two dimensionless integers. This equation was developed… Continue reading The Advent Calendar of Physics: Hydrogen
Experiment vs. Theory: Where Did It All Go Wrong?
Over at Backreaction, Bee is running an advent calendar of her own, with amusing anecdotes about famous physicists. Apparently, it’s a good year for advent calendars. A couple of days ago, her story was a famous one about Heisenberg nearly failing to get his Ph.D. because he disdained experiment: Wien wanted to fail Heisenberg, but… Continue reading Experiment vs. Theory: Where Did It All Go Wrong?
The Advent Calendar of Physics: Science Works
Moving along in our countdown to Newton’s birthday, we come to 1900, and one of the most revolutionary moment in the history of physics, represented in today’s equation: This is Max Planck’s formula for the spectrum of the “black-body” radiation emitted by a hot object at temperature T. It’s also the equation highlighted on what… Continue reading The Advent Calendar of Physics: Science Works
The Advent Calendar of Physics: Ideal Gas
Once again, the advent calendar is delayed until late at night by a busy day with SteelyKid– soccer in the morning, playing with a trebuchet after lunch, then Arthur Christmas at the Colonie mall. We’re running low on days to honor great milestones in physics, though, so I don’t want to skip a day entirely.… Continue reading The Advent Calendar of Physics: Ideal Gas