What’s the application? LIGO stands for Laser Interferometer Graviitational Wave Observatory, because (astro)physicists feel free to drop inconvenient words when making up cute acronyms. This is an experiment to look for disturbances in space-time caused by massive objects, which would manifest as a slight stretching and compression of space itself. What problem(s) is it the… Continue reading Amazing Laser Application 6: LIGO!
Category: Astronomy
Long Author Lists and Books Not Written
Back when I was in grad school, and paper copies of journals were delivered to the lab by a happy mailman riding a brontosaurus, I used to play a little game when the new copy of Physical Review Letters arrived: I would flip through the papers in the high energy and nuclear physics sections, and… Continue reading Long Author Lists and Books Not Written
The Eerie Silence by Paul Davies
Somebody at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has a really high opinion of this blog, as they not only sent me an Advance Reading Copy of Paul Davies’s forthcoming book about SETI, The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence, they followed it up with a finished hardcover. I read the ARC on the plane on… Continue reading The Eerie Silence by Paul Davies
Amazing Laser Application 3: Lunar Laser Ranging!
What’s the application? Measuring the distance from the Earth to the Moon by bouncing a laser off one of the retro-reflector arrays left there by the Apollo missions. What problem(s) is it the solution to? 1) “How does the distance from the Earth to the Moon vary over time due to things like tidal drag?”… Continue reading Amazing Laser Application 3: Lunar Laser Ranging!
Why Every Dog Should Love Quantum Physics 5: Sunlight
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog goes on sale in fine bookstores everywhere tomorrow. But maybe the four previous posts explaining why dogs should care about quantum physics haven’t yet convinced you to go buy a copy. So here’s another reason, one appropriate to this solstice season, when dogs in the Northern Hemisphere will… Continue reading Why Every Dog Should Love Quantum Physics 5: Sunlight
Still in the Dark
As a physicist with a blog, I am contractually obligated to do a post on the CDMS almost-a-result. This is that post. The short version: they expected at most 0.8 events (that’s total events, not events per day, or anything– this is a whole community built on detecting nothing at all), and got 2, with… Continue reading Still in the Dark
Gold, Frankincense, and Mars
I’m kind of fried from all the recent driving, and I’ve got some stuff to catch up on. So we’ll ease back into regular blogging, by posting a clip from last week’s Colbert Report with everybody’s favorite Jesuit, Brother Guy Consolmagno, talking about how alien life would affect Christianity: The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs… Continue reading Gold, Frankincense, and Mars
A Brief History of Timekeeping
I gave a guest lecture this morning in a colleague’s sophomore seminar class about time. She’s having them look at time from a variety of perspectives, and they just finished reading Longitude, so she asked me to talk about the physics of clocks and the measurement of time. I’ve long considered using “A Brief History… Continue reading A Brief History of Timekeeping
What the Pope’s Astronomer Thinks
Over at Physics and Physicists, ZapperZ notes a fairly useless interview with Guy Consolmagno, and suggests some alternative questions: 1. How old do you estimate the universe to be based not only on your observation, but also the consensus among astronomers? Would this be contrary to the biblical interpretation on the age of the universe?… Continue reading What the Pope’s Astronomer Thinks
DonorsChoose Payoff: Faster Light
A couple of days ago, I answered a question from a donor to the Uncertain Principles challenge page in this year’s Social Media Challenge (we’ve raised $1,807 thus far– thank you all). If you’d like a question of your own answered on the blog, all you need to do is send me the confirmation email… Continue reading DonorsChoose Payoff: Faster Light