Category: Physics

What Do You Need to Make Cold Atoms? Part 3: Test and Measurement

The third category in our look at lab apparatus, after vacuum hardware and lasers and optics is the huge collection of electronic gear that we use to control the experiments. I’ll borrow the sales term “test and measurement” as a catch-all description, though this is really broader than what you’ll usually find in that category.… Continue reading What Do You Need to Make Cold Atoms? Part 3: Test and Measurement

Do Not Look In Laser Pointer With Remaining Eye

Some folks I used to work with at NIST have looked at cheap green laser pointers, and found a potential danger. Some of the dimmer-looking green lasers are not so dim in the infrared, and in one case emitted 10X the rated power in invisible light. This could be a potential eye hazard. You can… Continue reading Do Not Look In Laser Pointer With Remaining Eye

What Do You Need to Make Cold Atoms? Part 2: Lasers and Optics

Following on yesterday’s discussion of the vacuum hardware needed for cooling atoms, let’s talk about the other main component of the apparatus: the optical system. The primary technique used for making cold atoms is laser cooling, and I’m sure it will come as no surprise that this requires lasers, and where there are lasers, there… Continue reading What Do You Need to Make Cold Atoms? Part 2: Lasers and Optics

What Do You Need to Make Cold Atoms? Part 1: Vacuum Hardware

Over in the reader request thread, Richard asks for experimental details: I’d be interested in (probably a series) of posts on how people practically actually do cold atoms experiments because I don’t really know. I needed to take some new publicity photos of the lab anyway, so this is a good excuse to bust out… Continue reading What Do You Need to Make Cold Atoms? Part 1: Vacuum Hardware

How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, Sideways

A Japanese physicist who I worked with as a post-doc spotted the Japanese edition of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog in the wild, and picked up a copy. He sent along a scan of a couple of pages of the text, one of which I reproduce here: I had totally forgotten that Japanese… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, Sideways

Technology, Entertainment, and Quantum Kookiness

A reader emails to ask about a new-to-me theory of physics, called “Quantum Space Theory” being promoted by a fellow named Thad Roberts. I wouldn’t usually bother with this, but Roberts was one of the speakers at TEDx Boulder. this is disappointing, to put it mildly– TED is a respected organization, and I don’t like… Continue reading Technology, Entertainment, and Quantum Kookiness

Toddler Thermodynamics

As seen in yesterday’s post, SteelyKid got a grill this weekend: This led to one of the cutest toddler anecdotes to date, which I’ll put below the fold for the sake of those heartless souls who don’t like cute kids.

Cold Atoms and Cooper Pairs

So, last week, I talked about how superconductors work, and I have in the past talked about the idea of making cold atoms look like electrons. And obvious question, then, whould be: Do cold atoms systems allow us to learn anything about superconductivity? The answer here is, unfortunately, “Yes and no.” That’s pretty weaselly, dude.… Continue reading Cold Atoms and Cooper Pairs

P=???

the hot topic in mathematical sciences at the moment is the draft proof that P≠NP (warning: PDF). This is one of the biggest issues in computer science, and one of the Clay Mathematics Institute’s Millennium Problems, so a proof would be Big News in math/CS, and earn the prover a cool $1,000,000. Reaction among blogging… Continue reading P=???