So, in the previous post about symmetry and the difference between bosons and fermions, I threw in a bunch of teasing comments about how the requirement that quantum particles be indistinguishable has surprising and interesting consequences. Of course, I never quite explained what all that was about. Which, I suppose, means I’m obliged to pull… Continue reading Two Fermions Walk Into a Bar…
Category: Physics
Fearful Symmetry
I’ve had a chance now to read through the new papers mentioned in the Wolfgang Ketterle post last week, and there’s some interesting stuff there. The second item on the list from the AIP news article, “First observation of Mott insulator shells,” is particularly interesting, as I did some early work in that area when… Continue reading Fearful Symmetry
Thoughts on Survey Seminars
I’ve had a tab open for a while containing an Inside Higher Ed article on a new approach to introducing science at Emory University: David Lynn, who chairs the department of chemistry at Emory University, spoke about Emory’s seminar program for entering freshmen. All Emory freshmen must take a seminar the first semester and the… Continue reading Thoughts on Survey Seminars
Because I Need More Stress
Steinn reports a new metric for research productivity that some people are using: the “H-number”: The H-score, takes all your papers, ranked by citation count; then you take the largest “k” such that the kth ranked paper has at least k citations. So, you start off with a H-score of zero. If your 5th highest… Continue reading Because I Need More Stress
Local Realism, Loopholes, and the God Delusion
The recent discussion of reviews of The God Delusion has been interesting and remarkably civil, and I am grateful to the participants for both of those facts. In thinking a bit more about this, I thought of a good and relatively non-controversial analogy to explain the point I’ve been trying to make about the reviews… Continue reading Local Realism, Loopholes, and the God Delusion
Classic Edition: Hey, Ref!
Having made reference to the referee system in my post about a paper being accepted, this seems like a good point to dust off an old post about the peer review system in physics. Like many of the other Classic Edition posts I’ve put up here, this one dates from July of 2002. Apparently, I… Continue reading Classic Edition: Hey, Ref!
Physics of Basketball
Well, at least, the physics of the new NBA basketball, at any rate… For those who haven’t heard the story already, the NBA is changing the style of the basketballs used in its games this season. They’re moving away from the traditional leather basketballs to a new synthetic material, which is supposed to hold up… Continue reading Physics of Basketball
Only We Can Do That to Our Pledges
It’s fraternity pledging season on campus, which means there are dozens of slightly addled sophomores wandering around being forced to do silly things by upperclassmen. This, combined with the passing mention of cable-making in the college advice post, got me thinking about scientific hazing– the sort of crap jobs that get given to first-year grad… Continue reading Only We Can Do That to Our Pledges
College Choice
Sean Carroll is offering more unsolicted advice (though it is in response to a comment, which makes it borderline solicited…), this time about choosing an undergraduate school. He breaks the options down into four categories, with two small errors that I’ll correct in copying the list over here: Liberal-Arts College (LAC), such as Williams or… Continue reading College Choice
Jet-Set Nerds
Symmetry magazine has an article on travel tips for physicists, from other physicists. There are two scary things about this: 1) The degree to which the picture that emerges from the different tips aligns with unflattering stereotypes of physicists. Some of the items are funny travel stories, but the tips are all about keeping your… Continue reading Jet-Set Nerds