Category: Physics

016/366: Depth of Field Follies

Lego minifigs shot with the two extremes of my fastest lens. Top is f/22, bottom f/1.8.

I’ve been doing a lot of opining on my blogs of late, and much less science-ing that I would like. So I thought I’d try bringing a little science to the photo-a-day project, by playing around with f-numbers. I put the camera on the tripod, with my fastest lens (a 50mm f/1.8 prime) and set… Continue reading 016/366: Depth of Field Follies

Physics Blogging Round-Up: Two Weeks’ Worth

I forgot to do this last week, because I was busy preparing for SteelyPalooza on Saturday, but here are links to my recent physics posts over at Forbes: — What ‘Ant-Man’ Gets Wrong About The Real Quantum Realm: On the way home from the Schrödinger Sessions, I had some time to kill so I stopped… Continue reading Physics Blogging Round-Up: Two Weeks’ Worth

Science Talks and Pick-Up Hoops

Over in Tumblr-land, Ben Lillie has an interesting post on all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes of a science talk. It’s an intimidatingly long list of stuff, in quite a range of different areas. But this is a solved problem in other performance fields: And that raises and interesting question, since aside… Continue reading Science Talks and Pick-Up Hoops

Back-of-the-Envelope Gravitational Which-Way

There’s a new Science Express paper on interfering clocks today, which is written up in Physics World, with comments from yours truly. The quote is from a much longer message I sent– with no expectation that it would end up as anything other than a pull quote, I might add, but I thought the background… Continue reading Back-of-the-Envelope Gravitational Which-Way

The Schrödinger Sessions: Science for Science Fiction

Attendees and some presenters at the Schrodinger Sessions.

Last weekend was our APS-funded outreach workshop The Schrödinger Sessions: Science for Science Fiction, held at the Joint Quantum Institute at the University of Maryland. The workshop offered a three-day “crash course” on quantum physics to 17 science fiction writers from a variety of media– we had novelists, short-story writers, screenwriters, and at least one… Continue reading The Schrödinger Sessions: Science for Science Fiction

Have Laptop, Will Travel

Having mentioned in yesterday’s post that I’ll be on sabbatical for the next academic year, this would probably be a good time to point out that this means I’m somewhat more flexible than usual in terms of going places and giving talks. And I enjoy going places and giving talks. About

Physics Blogging Round-Up: Condensed Matter, Magic, Navigation, and Late Nights

Another week, another set of posts at Forbes to link here: — Why Do Solids Have Energy Bands? A conceptual explanation of why putting together lots of atoms with electrons in well-defined energy levels leads to a solid with electrons filling broad energy bands. — This Is The Key Distinction Between Magic And Advanced Technology:… Continue reading Physics Blogging Round-Up: Condensed Matter, Magic, Navigation, and Late Nights

Physics Blogging Round-Up, New Car Edition

My new car, because I'm a middle-aged dad.

The big development of the week is that I bought a new car, as seen in the featured image. This ate up most of Tuesday, but I still got some quality physics blogging in over at Forbes: — The Basic Science Behind Creating Colors: A look at two quantum-mechanical phenomena and one quirk of biology… Continue reading Physics Blogging Round-Up, New Car Edition