Category: Physics

Career Alternatives for Physics PH.D.’s

Physics World has an interview with Alastair Reynolds, who was trained as an astrophysicist but is now a full-time SF author: How does your physics training help with your writing? Less than people imagine. I think the most important attribute for a science-fiction writer is to be fascinated by science — in all its manifestations.… Continue reading Career Alternatives for Physics PH.D.’s

What’s the Difference Between Physics and Chemistry?

An off-line question from someone at Seed: Fundamentally, what is the difference between chemistry and physics? There are a bunch of different ways to try to explain the dividing lines between disciplines. My take on this particular question is that there’s a whole hierarchy of (sub)fields, based on what level of abstraction you work at.… Continue reading What’s the Difference Between Physics and Chemistry?

Neutral Bohmian Mechanics?

Another Jonah Goldberg moment– can anybody recommend a reasonably neutral discussion of Bohm’s non-local hidden variable version of quantum theory? A little Googling turns up this encyclopedia article and a tutorial dialogue on the arxiv, but I’d like to see a fairly complete treatment of it that doesn’t go to great lengths to make proponents… Continue reading Neutral Bohmian Mechanics?

Inside Peer Review

Over at Unqualified Offerings, “Thoreau” offers some musings about peer review. I saw this and said, “Aha! The perfect chance to dust off an old post, and free up some time…” Sadly, I already recycled the post in question, so I feel obliged to be less lazy and contribute some new content. I generally agree… Continue reading Inside Peer Review

Turtles and Strings: Where Does Science Stop?

The infamous Davies op-ed has been collected together with some responses at edge.org, and one of the responses is by Sean Carroll, who reproduces his response at Cosmic Variance. Sean’s a smart guy, and I basically agree with his argument, but I’m a contrary sort, and want to nitpick one thing about his response. He… Continue reading Turtles and Strings: Where Does Science Stop?

Scientist as Detective

On a happier science-related note, the AIP’s Physics News Update highlights a very nice article in The American Journal of Physics about the wide-ranging scientific investigations of Luis Alvarez: Scientist as detective: Luis Alvarez and the pyramid burial chambers, the JFK assassination, and the end of the dinosaurs Luis Alvarez (1911-1988) was one of the… Continue reading Scientist as Detective

The Easterbrook Idiocy Supercollider

I generally like Gregg Easterbrook’s writing about football (though he’s kind of gone off the deep end regarding the Patriots this year), but everything else he turns his hand to is a disaster. In particular, he tends to pad his columns out with references to science and technology issues. I’m not quite sure what the… Continue reading The Easterbrook Idiocy Supercollider