The Institute of Physics is the UK’s main organization of physicists (sort of like the American Physical Society), and yesterday, they announced their awards for 2007. The full list of winners is only available as a Word file, for some odd reason, but it’s a distinguished group. The prizes are headed by the brand-new Isaac… Continue reading Institute of Physics Awards 2007
Category: Physics
Open Access Physics
This is more Bora’s thing than mine, but I should note that the new open access journal PMC Physics A has published their first articles as freely available PDF’s. They also have a video interview with the editor up on the site. Of course, with titles like “Dilaton and off-shell (non-critical string) effects in Boltzmann… Continue reading Open Access Physics
Bump Hunting 2: The Big Tease
Speaking of cryptic particle physcis results, noted rumor-monger Tommaso Dorigo has a rather long post about the ongoing Higgs search. It basically boils down to “There are new results due to be released soon, and I’m not going to talk about them,” which wouldn’t seem to require 2000 words, but there you go. Anyway, if… Continue reading Bump Hunting 2: The Big Tease
Superconducting Quantum News
Physics World had a news story about developments in quantum computation, covering two new papers in Nature: Coupling superconducting qubits via a cavity bus from the groups of Steve Girvin and Rob Schoelkopf at Yale, also described in this press release. Coherent quantum state storage and transfer between two phase qubits via a resonant cavity… Continue reading Superconducting Quantum News
Many Worlds, Many Headaches
So, I’ve put myself into a position where I need to spend a substantial amount of time thinking about weird foundational issues in quantum mechanics. This has revealed to me just why it is that not that many people spend a substantial amount of time thinking about weird foundational issues in quantum mechanics. Let’s consider… Continue reading Many Worlds, Many Headaches
The Academic Physics Job Market, Part 2
It’s job-hunting season in academia, which also means it’s talking-about-the-job-market season. After writing the previous post, I noticed a post on the same topic by Steve Hsu, who was interviewed for a Chronicle of Higher Education article (temporary free link, look quickly!) about the lousy job market in science. Steve has most of the relevant… Continue reading The Academic Physics Job Market, Part 2
The Academic Physics Job Market
In the neverending debates about the current state of physics– see, for example, Bee’s thoughtful post about The trouble With Physics, you will frequently hear it said that the academic job market in physics sucks. But what, exactly, does that mean in quantitative terms? It’s job hunting season in academia now– still a little early… Continue reading The Academic Physics Job Market
How to Clean a Mirror
Let’s say you have a mirror– not some cheesey $2 makeup mirror, but a research-grade aluminum mirror– and it has some crud on it, say a film of junk deposited during your Summer Institute for Hot MEtal Chemistry. Like, say, the mirror on the right in this picture: How do you get that mirror clean?
Radioactive Clouds, Antimatter Molecules, and the Dying Earth
A quick physics news update, on some stories that came out last week: “Thundercloud “accelerator” fires gamma-ray beam:” A team of scientists in Japan has seen a 40-second burst of gamma rays from a thundercloud. This was presumably produced by electrons accelerated to extremely high velocities within the could coming to a sudden stop– a… Continue reading Radioactive Clouds, Antimatter Molecules, and the Dying Earth
Dismal Physics
Sean Carroll takes a look at economics from the point of view of a physicist: Economists have a certain way of looking at the world, in which (to simplify quite a bit) people act rationally to maximize their utility. That sort of talk pushes physicists’ buttons, because maximizing functions is something we do all the… Continue reading Dismal Physics