Category: Physics

Long Author Lists and Books Not Written

Back when I was in grad school, and paper copies of journals were delivered to the lab by a happy mailman riding a brontosaurus, I used to play a little game when the new copy of Physical Review Letters arrived: I would flip through the papers in the high energy and nuclear physics sections, and… Continue reading Long Author Lists and Books Not Written

How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Centrally Isolated Edition

Not a full Obsessive Update (because not much happened over the weekend, when we took SteelyKid to my parents’ place for Easter), but a quick reminder to folks in the Ithaca, NY area: I’ll be giving the physics colloquium at Cornell this afternoon at 4pm. If you’re in the area, and want to hear me… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Centrally Isolated Edition

Radio DogPhysics: Northeast Public Radio Edition

I forgot to schedule a blog post to remind people to tune in to my appearance on WAMC’s “The Roundtable” yesterday morning, talking about How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. If you missed it, and have fourteen minutes to kill, they have the segment on their audio archive now. It went well, and I… Continue reading Radio DogPhysics: Northeast Public Radio Edition

Congratulations to Peter Bonventre

If you scroll way down the list of this year’s Goldwater Scholarship winners, you’ll find: Peter John Bonventre Institution: Union College Major(s): Physics/Mathematics Career Goal: Ph.D. in Mathematics or Physics. Conduct research and teach at the university level. Pete’s one of our junior physics majors. He’s done summer work on both nuclear physics and condensed… Continue reading Congratulations to Peter Bonventre

How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update and Upcoming Events

A flurry of things to kick off the new academic term. Reviews and news: A nice write-up on Wired’s GeekDad blog by Kathy Ceceri, about last week’s homeschool event. Includes a picture of me giving a tour of my lab. ZapperZ says that I’m not teaching physics, I’m teaching about physics. Which is probably fair,… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update and Upcoming Events

How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update

Been a little while since I’ve done an Obsessive Update, but a few noteworthy things have come up recently: A very nice review at Pet Connection: “this brilliant and (relatively) simple book explains the basic premises of quantum physics in terms that dogs and most English majors can understand.” Which is not to say that… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update

Belated March Meeting Wrap-Up

I did one sketchy update from Portland last Tuesday, but never wrote up my impressions of the rest of the March Meeting– when I got back, I was buried in grading, and then trying to put together Monday’s presentation. And, for reasons that will become apparent, I was unable to write anything up before I… Continue reading Belated March Meeting Wrap-Up

Cooling a “Macroscopic” Object to Its Quantum Ground State

Several people have sent me links to news stories about last week’s Nature paper, “Quantum ground state and single-phonon control of a mechanical resonator.” (It was also presented at the March Meeting, but I didn’t go to that session). This is billed as the first observation of quantum phenomena with a “macroscopic” or “naked eye… Continue reading Cooling a “Macroscopic” Object to Its Quantum Ground State

Research Blogging Awards

The winners of the first Research Blogging Awards were announced today, and I was very pleasantly surprised to find that this blog was named the “Best Blog — Chemistry, Physics, or Astronomy.” I knew that I was nominated– I was one of the judges, and while I abstained from voting on my own blog, I… Continue reading Research Blogging Awards