From The Fly in the Cathedral, Brian Cathcart’s history of the experiments that led up to the splitting of lithium nuclei by accelerated protons in the Cavendish Laboratory in 1932. One of the incidents along the way was the discovery of the neutron by James Chadwick, also in 1932. In describing Chadwick, who was Ernest… Continue reading “Up to Their Tricks Again”: My New Favorite Physicist Story
Category: Physics
“Eureka!” and the Problems Thereof
I’m not talking about the tv show Eureka here, which was mostly silly fluff but not especially problematic. I’m talking about the famous anecdote about Archimedes of Syracuse, who supposedly realized the principle that bears his name when slipping into a bath, distracted by a problem he had been assigned by his king. On realizing… Continue reading “Eureka!” and the Problems Thereof
Work-Life Juggling, Then and Now
A couple of Mondays ago, I was at work and got the dreaded phone call from day care. “[The Pip]’s got conjunctivitis again. It’s really bad, and he needs to go home right away.” Admittedly, this isn’t the very worst phone call a parent could receive, but it’s very much Not Good. Conjunctivitis means a… Continue reading Work-Life Juggling, Then and Now
Visiting Faculty Position at Union College
My trip into the office today was for the express purpose of posting this job ad: We invite applications for Visiting Assistant Professor starting in September 2014. This position is available for up to three years, contingent on satisfactory performance. Applicants should have some teaching experience and a strong commitment to undergraduate education. Union is… Continue reading Visiting Faculty Position at Union College
Interference with 10,000-Particle “Particles”: “Matter-wave interference with particles selected from a molecular library with masses exceeding 10000 amu”
I’m teaching Quantum Optics this term, and one of my students picked “Atom Optics” off the list of suggested paper topics. When he asked for pointers, I said “You should check out the diffraction stuff Markus Arndt’s group does.” And just like that, a paper from the Arndt group turns up from the Arxiv Blog…… Continue reading Interference with 10,000-Particle “Particles”: “Matter-wave interference with particles selected from a molecular library with masses exceeding 10000 amu”
Finding That There’s Nothing to Find
In 1967, a team of scientists hauled a big pile of gear– electronics, particle detectors, a giant slab of iron– into the burial chamber at the base of one of the pyramids at Giza. This sounds like a scene from a science fiction or fantasy novel– throw in the fact that their first attempt was… Continue reading Finding That There’s Nothing to Find
Individualists, Working Together
An article titled “Individualism: The legacy of great physicists,” by Ricardo Heras. crossed my various social media feeds a half-dozen times on Tuesday, so I finally broke down and read it, and I’m puzzled. The argument is very straightforward– single-author publications used to be common, now they’re not, this might indicate a lack of truly… Continue reading Individualists, Working Together
One, Two, Many, Lots: Investigating the Start of Many-Body Physics
Two papers with a similar theme crossed my social media feeds in the last couple of days. You might think this is just a weird coincidence, but I’m choosing to take it as a sign to write about them for the blog. So, what are these papers, and what’s the theme? One is the final… Continue reading One, Two, Many, Lots: Investigating the Start of Many-Body Physics
On Private Science Funding
A couple of weeks back, DougT won this year’s Nobel betting pool, and requested a post on the subject of funding of wacky ieas: could you comment on this: http://www.space.com/22344-elon-musk-hyperloop-technology-revealed.html and the phenomenon of the uber-rich funding science in general. It seems to me that there used to be more private funding of science, and… Continue reading On Private Science Funding
Historical Physicist Halloween Costumes
It’s that time of year again when people start thinking about Halloween costumes– SteelyKid is apparently planning to re-use her Peter Pan outfit from last year– and the conceptual costumes post from a while back has proved enduringly popular at this time of year. If you’re not into conceptual art, though, maybe some historical cosplay… Continue reading Historical Physicist Halloween Costumes