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
Category: Pop Culture
Optics Question: How Did the Photographer Do That?
Yes, that’s another TED@NYC picture as the “featured image,” but don’t run away! It’s a post about science, I swear! The photo up above is from the Flickr set (which, by the way, has been edited significantly since yesterday…), and I like it a good deal. Mostly because, as the joking caption suggests, that photo… Continue reading Optics Question: How Did the Photographer Do That?
Supreme Leader of Quantumland
The nice folks at TED have put up a giant Flickr set of pictures from last week’s event. I’m not sure it’s complete, but I happened to notice it this morning, and it already had several pictures of me in it, which is all I really care about. I particularly like the “featured image” above,… Continue reading Supreme Leader of Quantumland
Favorite Quantum Physics in Science Fiction?
I’m doing a bit of work on an idea for physics outreach, which would involve tying a discussion of modern physics to science fiction stories. I have Opinions about this sort of thing, of course, but I also have readers who might think of things I don’t. So, let me throw this out to you… Continue reading Favorite Quantum Physics in Science Fiction?
On Hooks, and the Awesomeness of the Known
Over the weekend, before the whole Scientific America debacle blew up, Ben Lillie tweeted: Looking for science news pegs that aren't "a paper was published." Good examples? #ScioOcean #scionew — Ben Lillie (@BenLillie) October 12, 2013 This is, of course, a familiar problem to a lot of people who care about the public dissemination of… Continue reading On Hooks, and the Awesomeness of the Known
The Art of Physics
The TED@NYC trip took me to Manhattan on Monday for the run-through of my talk that night, but then I was left in The City all day Tuesday with time to kill. My original plan was to go to the Guggenheim Museum, as I’ve never been there and it’s an iconic building, but there was… Continue reading The Art of Physics
Malcolm Gladwell Is Deepak Chopra
I’m sure I’ve done more than enough wibbling about TED for this week, but the only major physics story at the moment involved the Higgs boson, and I’m thoroughly sick of that. So let’s talk about Malcolm Gladwell and journosplaining. Gladwell has a new book out, David and Goliath that from all reports is pretty… Continue reading Malcolm Gladwell Is Deepak Chopra
TED@NYC Recap
On Monday afternoon, I walked into the TED offices in lower Manhattan just as Zak Ebrahim was starting his practice talk, a powerful story about being raised by a father who subscribed to an extreme form of Islam and eventually assassinated a rabbi and took part in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. And I… Continue reading TED@NYC Recap
On Public Speaking Across Disciplines
We had a faculty meeting yesterday, at which one colleague suggested that in addition to our “Writing Across the Curriculum” requirement, we should have a “Speaking Across the Curriculum” requirement to teach students oral presentation skills. This provoked a bit of tittering about the possible acronym, but it’s not an obviously awful idea. The basic… Continue reading On Public Speaking Across Disciplines
Sheldon Cooper and Alfred Nobel
Last week, before we headed out for the weekend, I had a brief exchange with Ben Lillie on Twitter, prompted by the following set of tweets: OK, here's a thing. I'll often hear people complain that Hollywood gets science wrong because there's *1* scientist who does everything 1/3 — Ben Lillie (@BenLillie) September 27, 2013… Continue reading Sheldon Cooper and Alfred Nobel