Uncertain Principles Archive
Physics, Politics, Pop Culture; formerly on ScienceBlogs
I’ve been remiss in my self-promotional duties, but I’m giving a public lecture tomorrow night in Newport News, VA, as part of the Jefferson Lab Science Series. This will be my traditional “What Every Dog Should Know About Quantum Physics” talk, with the sad addition of a slide honoring the late, great Queen of Niskayuna […]
In yesterday’s post about the lack of money in academia, I mentioned in passing that lack of funding is part of the reason for the slow pace of progress on improving faculty diversity. That is, we could make more rapid progress if we suddenly found shitloads of money and could go on a massive hiring […]
A long-ish stretch of time, but I was basically offline for a bunch of that because I needed to finish a chapter I was asked to contribute to an academic book. So there are only four physics posts from Forbes to promote this time: — ‘The Expanse’ Is A Rare Sci-Fi Show That Gets Simulated […]
This one was a whole bunch of work for one smallish shot… So, in past rounds of “science-y things with my fancy camera,” I looked at the effect of ISO settings and apertures. This time out, I wanted to look at something moving, and the way that it blurs with increasing exposure time. My initial […]
One of the things about being a physicist that makes it tough to have any sensible work-life balance is that I’m constantly seeing little things and thinking “Oooh! Physics!” then getting distracted from what I’m actually supposed to be doing. Take, for example, our bathroom sink. I have noticed, from time to time, a weird […]
The Center for Quantum Technologies is running a “Quantum Shorts” contest, where they solicited short stories exploring some aspect of quantum physics. They cut their large number of applicants down to two short-lists of ten, one for the “Open” category, and one for the “Youth” category. They’ll be giving out a “People’s Choice Award” based […]
A couple of weeks ago, I gave a talk at TEDxAlbany on how quantum physics manifests in everyday life. I posted the approximate text back then, but TEDx has now put up the video: So, if you’ve been wondering what it sounded like live, well, now you can see…
The topic of sports injuries is unavoidable these days– the sports radio shows I listen to in the car probably spend an hour a week bemoaning the toll playing football takes on kids. Never a publication to shy away from topics that bring easy clicks, Vox weighs in with The Most Dangerous High School Sports […]
So, yesterday was my big TEDxAlbany talk. I was the first speaker scheduled, probably because I gave them the title “The Exotic Physics of an Ordinary Morning,” so it seemed appropriate to have me talking while people were still eating breakfast… The abstract I wrote when I did the proposal mentions both quantum physics and […]
A longer-than-usual gap between recap posts, but thanks to some kid illnesses and the Thanksgiving holiday, not all that many new physics posts over at Forbes: — Football Physics: Checking The Odds On Wild Bounces: A backyard experiment to see how often a bouncing football takes a big hop. Follows from this rant and prompted […]