OK, it’s not an official Ask a ScienceBlogger question (that answer will show up next week), but over at the World’s Fair, they’ve raised an important scholarly question via a scene from The Simpsons: Marge: Homer? Homer: Yelloh? Marge: There’s a man here who thinks he can help you. Homer: Batman? Marge: No, he’s a… Continue reading Ask a ScienceBlogger: Cartoon Edition
Category: Physics
Assume a Spherical Cow
Over at bento-box, there’s a nice response to my recent post about simulations. He makes the very good point that the Sandia press release in question could sensibly be read as referring to the fact that recent computer technology requires fewer simplifying approximations: Well, it isn’t really until quite recently that computers have gotten fast… Continue reading Assume a Spherical Cow
Stringy Links
For those interested in keeping abreast of the latest stuff on string theory and its discontents, some links: Jonathan Shock is based in Beijing, and blogging about the Strings 2006 meeting. He’s got a first-day recap including descriptions of several of the talks, and incident events. Victor Rivelles is also blogging from Beijing, and has… Continue reading Stringy Links
Bored by the Landscape
The big event of the moment in physics, at least on the high energy/ theory side, is the Strings 2006 meeting in Beijing, which will feature the usual suspects talking about the usual topics in string theory. This comes on the heels of the SUSY06 meeting, which was extensively blogged by Clifford and others. This… Continue reading Bored by the Landscape
Simulate This
Rob Knop has another post to which I can only say “Amen!”, this time on the relatioship between simulation and experiment (in response to this BoingBoing post about a Sandia press release): Can simulations show us things that experiments cannot? Absolutely! In fact, if they didn’t, we wouldn’t bother doing simulations. This has been true… Continue reading Simulate This
Stop Nodding!
Rob Knop talks about a great teaching moment: A student who refused to just smile and nod: I was very grateful for that student. You see, when professors ask, “do you understand that?”, it’s not a test. It’s not the professor trying to catch the students up in admitting to being confused, it’s not the… Continue reading Stop Nodding!
Ask a ScienceBlogger: Time and Money
Weirdly, this week’s Ask a ScienceBlogger question may be the hardest one to answer yet: Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why? Most of the responses have taken this as an “If you had it to do… Continue reading Ask a ScienceBlogger: Time and Money
True Lab Stories: Maybe You Should Ask a Rocket Scientist
It’s been a while since I did a True Lab Story, and it seems like an appropriate sort of topic for a rainy Friday when I have grades to finish. I’m running out of really good personal anecdotes, but there are still a few left before I have to move entirely to hearsay. And who… Continue reading True Lab Stories: Maybe You Should Ask a Rocket Scientist
How the Other Half Grades
My Quantum Optics class this term is a junior/ senior level elective, one of a set of four or five such classes that we rotate through, offering one or two a year. We require physics majors to take one of these classes in order to graduate, and encourage grad-school-bound students to take as many as… Continue reading How the Other Half Grades
Ray Davis Dead at 91
The post title pretty much says it. Raymond Davis Jr., who shared the Nobel Prize in 2002 for his work on detecting neutrinos, died Wednesday. The Times obituatary showed up in my RSS feeds today. Davis got his dynamite money for the neutrino detection experiment that he ran for years in the Homestake mine, where… Continue reading Ray Davis Dead at 91