The other day, while we were walking from my office back to the lab, one of my students asked me a question that’s perfect for a Dorky Poll: What’s the coolest single word you’ve encountered in physics? His vote was for “antineutrino,” but I’ve got to go with “counterintuitive,” as in “Stimulated Raman Adiabatic Passage… Continue reading Extremely Dorky Poll: Coolest Word in Physics
Category: Physics
Small Victories
Here’s my achievement for the week: OK, that may not seem like much, but this is what it looked like before I started:
“Supersolids:” Make Up Your Mind, Already
The mysterious saga of “supersolid” helium continues this week. If you recall, there were some new results a little while back showing that the effect depends on disorder in the samples, followed by neutron scattering studies that didn’t show the expected distribution of states in the sample. These results suggest that something else is going… Continue reading “Supersolids:” Make Up Your Mind, Already
Great Moments in Student Course Evaluations
In response to a question about “Other aspects of the instructor’s teaching,” one student in my recently completed E&M class wrote: Prof. Orzel gives the impression of an everyday guy who just happens to have a vast but hidden knowledge of physics and the course was taught in that slightly utilitarian approach. I’ve been looking… Continue reading Great Moments in Student Course Evaluations
Nattering Nabobs of Negativity
Lots of people are down on physics or physicists these days: Cosma Shalizi is down on power-law fits, or, more precisely, annoyed at people who misuse power-law distributions. He’s written a paper about how to use them correctly, and provides a handy list of take-home points on his blog. Travis Hime is down on the… Continue reading Nattering Nabobs of Negativity
Don’t Sound So Disappointed
Since it seems to be a good day for posting things that may be unwise, I’ll throw this out. In the middle of a news release dump from the APS, there’s a story about a new study of physics pedagogy that found gender gaps persisting in spite of “active learning” techniques. This is in contrast… Continue reading Don’t Sound So Disappointed
Quantum Particles and Australian Teabags
His Holiness posts a YouTube video of a cartoon explanation of double-slit interference. Apparently this was made by the “What the Bleep” people, and it sort of shows in the gosh-wow tone that shades toward mysticism at the end. As always with YouTube, though, the real fun is in looking at the related videos, which… Continue reading Quantum Particles and Australian Teabags
Frequency Combs and Astrophysics
Clifford Johnson is pointing to a pair of stories about extrasolar planets. One is a news piece about the “flood” of new discoveries, and the other is a Top 10 list from space.com (warning: irritating web design). This provides a good excuse to roll out a blog suggestion from Ron Walsworth, who pointed out a… Continue reading Frequency Combs and Astrophysics
Dorky Poll: Quantum Statistics
I was trying to think of something deep and meaningful to post today, but I’ve been in conference mode too long to do anything all that deep. So here’s a simple binary choice for all the nerds in the audience: Bosons or fermions? It’s a tough call after a few days of conferencing: On the… Continue reading Dorky Poll: Quantum Statistics
Physics News Backlog
Once again, physics news stories are piling up in my RSS reader, so here’s a collection of recent stuff: My old group at NIST has done cool things with Bose-Eisntein condensates in an optical lattice. They load atoms into a regular array of sites, and then split each site into a double well, which is… Continue reading Physics News Backlog