A great many physics experiments need to be conducted at low pressures, in order to avoid sample contamination, thermal effects, or dissipative forces produced by interaction with air. Some experiments don’t require all that much in terms of vacuum, while others require pressures so low that they’re limited by the diffusion of gasses through stainless… Continue reading A User’s Guide to Vacuum Pumps Part 1: Noisy Pumps
Category: Physics
Dinner With ΔKE
As mentioned previously, I was invited to discuss physics and politics at one of the local fraternities earlier this week. Oddly, given the primacy of Greek organizations on campus, this is only the fourth time I’ve set foot inside a fraternity or sorority house in seven years. The previous occasions were times when I was… Continue reading Dinner With ΔKE
Experimental Physics for Morons, #47
I spent the bulk of yesterday afternoon doing vacuum system work, specifically working on the system to feed gas into the atomic beam source. My feelings about this can be inferred from the Facebook status message I set at the time: “Chad Orzel abhors a vacuum.” The apparatus I’m building uses laser cooling to decelerate… Continue reading Experimental Physics for Morons, #47
Notes for a Discussion of Physics and Politics
The local fraternities and sororities hold occasional dinners/ discussions with faculty, to demonstrate that they’re engaged with the intellectual life of the college. One of my students invited me to dinner at the Change in Kinetic Energy fraternity tomorrow night, and I agreed to do a discussion of physics and politics. That’s a vague topic,… Continue reading Notes for a Discussion of Physics and Politics
Theory of Blogging Faculty
Over at evolgen, RPM is wondering about the disciplinary distribution of bloggers: I have an intuition, backed up by absolutely no evidence, that my particular area of interest (evolutionary genetics) has more faculty blogging about stuff related to their research than other fields. This is most likely the result of my interest in those blogs,… Continue reading Theory of Blogging Faculty
Literary Poll: Nanotechnology in Fiction?
A reader writes in with a literary query: I was asked to teach a 400-level course on Nanotechnology at my U. In addition to the usual technical content, I would like to include a critical view of how nanotechnology is portrayed in popular culture. So I am looking for suitable works that can be examined.… Continue reading Literary Poll: Nanotechnology in Fiction?
Questions of Ethics
Janet Stemwedel is blogging, as is her wont, about questions of ethical behavior in science. She had a post Monday giving advice on how to counter unethical behavior, which all seems pretty good to me. Unfortunately, the people who read and comment on blogs about academic culture tend to start at “corrosively cynical,” and get… Continue reading Questions of Ethics
Dorky Poll: Three Beeeeellion Dollars
Regular commenter Johan Larson writes with a suggested blog topic: The Human Genome Project (yes, you have to pronounce those capitals) cost about $3 billion. If $3 billion were yours to spend on scientific research, how would you spend the money? That’s a great question, and a great topic for a Dorky Poll. I’ll narrow… Continue reading Dorky Poll: Three Beeeeellion Dollars
Nobody Expects Bose-Einstein Condensation
An interesting tidbit that occurred to me in thinking about the “unexpected uses of technology” panel (well, along with the “Total Eclipse of the Heart” thing): In a certain sense, my entire professional career is derived from unexpected uses of technology. I’m not talking about the physics-with-the-dog thing, though that’s pretty unexpected, but rather my… Continue reading Nobody Expects Bose-Einstein Condensation
Quantum Teleportation (for Dogs)
I gave a talk at Boskone in the prime Sunday 10 am slot, on quantum teleportation. I read the opening dialogue from Chapter 8 of the book, and then did a half-hour (or so) explanation of the real physics behind quantum teleportation. If you weren’t one of the thirty-ish people who watched at least part… Continue reading Quantum Teleportation (for Dogs)