Two How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog items: First and foremost, I’ll be appearing at Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park, CA, this Thursday, June 14 at 7:00pm. I’ll probably read a bit of the book, so if you’ve ever wanted to hear me do the silly dog voice live, here’s your chance. Provided, of… Continue reading Relativity for Bay Area Dogs, Among Others
Category: Physics
Single Photons Are Still Photons: “Wave-particle dualism and complementarity unraveled by a different mode”
In which we do a little ResearchBlogging, taking a look at a slightly confusing paper putting a new twist on the double-slit experiment. ———— I’m off to California this afternoon, spending the rest of the week at DAMOP in Pasadena (not presenting this year, just hanging out to see the coolest new stuff in Atomic,… Continue reading Single Photons Are Still Photons: “Wave-particle dualism and complementarity unraveled by a different mode”
Excellent Approximations and Lying to Children
In which I talk about the common complaint that we teach students physics that “isn’t true,” and the limits on that statement. ———— Frequent commenter Ron sent me an email pointing to this post by David Reed on “What we “know” that t’aint so…. and insist on teaching to kids!”: he science we teach is… Continue reading Excellent Approximations and Lying to Children
The Vicious Cycle of Physics PR
In which I talk about why it is that particle physics and cosmology are so over-represented in popular physics, and why my own books contribute to that. [The too-short excerpts on the new front page are beyond my ability to change, so I’ll be doing Victorian-style “In which…” summaries at the start of posts as… Continue reading The Vicious Cycle of Physics PR
Ask Emmy Questions
The blog is recovering from the transition to WordPress, but I’m still not fully confident in it. So We’ll turn to another corner of the social media universe for my procrastinatory needs this morning: Having Emmy answer physics questions on Twitter. The same deal as when we’ve done this before: If you’ve got a physics… Continue reading Ask Emmy Questions
How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog in the New York Times
I was going to post something noting that the great WordPress transition will begin at 7pm tonight, and comments after that time will be lost like Roy Batty’s tears. However, I have much happier news: tomorrow’s Science Times (available on the Web already) will include a review of How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog!… Continue reading How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog in the New York Times
How to Teach Relativity to Your Bay Area Dog
So, you find yourself living in the San Francisco Bay area, and you maybe have a dog who would like to know something about relativity, or you maybe want to someday have a dog who will want to know something about relativity, or you maybe want to know something more about relativity yourself, in case… Continue reading How to Teach Relativity to Your Bay Area Dog
Genre Fiction and the Real Problem With Philosophy of Science
There’s been a bunch of discussion recently about philosophy of science and whether it adds anything to science. Most of this was prompted by Lawrence Krauss’s decision to become the Nth case study for “Why authors should never respond directly to bad reviews,” with some snide comments in an interview in response to a negative… Continue reading Genre Fiction and the Real Problem With Philosophy of Science
The Crappy Science of Comic-Book Movies
I go back and forth about the whole question of scientific accuracy in tv shows and movies. On the one hand, I think that complaining “Explosions don’t make noise in space!” is one of the worst forms of humorless dorkitude, and I’m generally happy to let bad science slide by in the service of an… Continue reading The Crappy Science of Comic-Book Movies
For Extra Credit, Estimate Your Chances of Winning: Ballparking Giveaway
Some time back, I reviewed a cool book about Fermi problems by Aaron Santos, then a post-doc at Michigan. In the interim, he’s taken a faculty job at Oberlin, written a second book on sports-related Fermi problems, and started a blog, none of which I had noticed until he emailed me. Shame on me. Anyway,… Continue reading For Extra Credit, Estimate Your Chances of Winning: Ballparking Giveaway