Category: Pop Culture

The Perfection of Bay Area Dogphysics

Last night, as I was flying in to San Francisco, Matt Cain pitched the first perfect game in Giants history. Now, a casual observer might think these events were unrelated, but to ancient alien theorists, the connection between them could not be more obvious. Thus, you should come to Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park this… Continue reading The Perfection of Bay Area Dogphysics

Relativity for Bay Area Dogs, Among Others

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

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

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

The Republican Brain by Chris Mooney

This has been out for a little while now, and Chris has been promoting it very heavily, and it’s sort of interesting to see the reactions. It’s really something of a Rorschach blot of a book, with a lot of what’s been written about it telling you more about what the writer wants to be… Continue reading The Republican Brain by Chris Mooney

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

Exploring Space: Don’t Sell Robots Short

One final thought on the Big Science/ Space Chronicles stuff from last week. One of the things I found really frustrating about the book, and the whole argument that we ought to be sinking lots of money into manned space missions is that the terms of the argument are so nebulous. This is most obvious… Continue reading Exploring Space: Don’t Sell Robots Short

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