I’m not much of a baseball fan, but we’re edging our way toward football season, so I flipped to ESPN radio a couple of days ago, in time to hear Mike and Mike discussing Jim Thome’s 600th home run. They were questioning how much meaning we should attach to home run records any more, given […]
Category: Television
MythBusters to the Rescue (We Hope)
SteelyKid has used a pacifier from very shortly after she was born. We’ve been slowly working her off it– she’s stopped taking it to day care, or using it other than at bedtime or in the car– but she’s resisted giving it up entirely. since she’s now a great big three-year old, we decided it […]
Fringe Thoughts
Last week, I asked for advice on the show Fringe, because I need to be able to speak sensibly about it for the purpose of talking about parallel universes. I’ve been working through Janne’s list of recommended episodes, watching on my laptop while SteelyKid goes to sleep, and have got up through the Season 3 […]
How Much Outreach Do We Need? Depends on What You Mean by “We”
Over Twitter, somebody pointed to this article on astronomy outreach (free PDF from that link), which argues that everybody else should stop trying to be Brian Cox: I’ve known Brian for years and worked with him before his celebrity status went supernova. I would love to say “I told you so” to all the TV […]
Do You Really Need an Electron Microscope for That?
As previously mentioned, I’m watching a little bit of Fringe in order to be able to talk sensibly about it later this week. I watch the Season 1 finale last night, and its treatment of parallel universes is about what I’d expect for tv, but being the obsessive dork I am, I got distracted from […]
Fringe Query
I’m going to be talking to someone about treatments of parallel worlds in popular media next week, and as the only going mass media concern with a parallel-worlds plot seems to be the show Fringe, it would be helpful for me to be able to talk sensibly about it. Thus, two questions: 1) Where is […]
An Incomplete List of Pop-Culture References in How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog
I’ve been going through the manuscript for the book making up a list of glossary words (a frighteningly long list), and also noting miscellaneous pop-cultural references– quotes, direct mentions, paraphrases, etc. I’m sure I’ve missed a few– many of them occur in section titles, which my eyes tend to slide right over as I read […]
Dog Physics On TV: Set Your DVR
I learned today that the National Georgraphic Channel video I mentioned last week has actually already aired on the network. It was last week’s episode of the series “Naked Science,” titled Living in a Parallel Universe. I haven’t seen it, obviously, but it’s running again, tomorrow (the 26th), at 4pm (Eastern (US) time). Set your […]
When Aliens Attack
As I have admitted previously, I have a fondness for tv shows about UFO’s, the loonier the better. So, when I learned that there was a show called When Aliens Attack airing last night on the National Geographic channel, I was all over that. I’m happy to report that it did not disappoint– it brought […]
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog On TV
Well, on video over the web, anyway… If you look at the Featured Videos on the National Geographic Channel web page, or, hopefully, in the embedded video below: You’ll see a short video clip of a program about quantum physics, that includes me and Emmy among the experts on camera. I’m pretty psyched, though I’m […]