Sean Carroll is miffed about a science-and-religion panel at the World Science Festival: The panelists include two scientists who are Templeton Prize winners — Francisco Ayala and Paul Davies — as well as two scholars of religion — Elaine Pagels and Thupten Jinpa. Nothing in principle wrong with any of those people, but there is… Continue reading Extremists Aren’t Interesting
Category: Science
Correlation, Causation, and Belief in Creation
Thinking from Kansas, Josh Rosenau notices a correlation in data from a Daily Kos poll question on the origin of the universe: Saints be praised, 62% of the public accepts the Big Bang and a 13.7 billion year old universe. Democrats are the most positive, with 71% accepting that, while only 44% of Republicans agree… Continue reading Correlation, Causation, and Belief in Creation
Relativity on a Human Scale
While I mostly restricted myself to watching invited talks at DAMOP last week, I did check out a few ten-minute talks, one of which ended up being just about the coolest thing I saw at the meeting. Specifically, the Friday afternoon talk on observing relativity with atomic clocks by Chin-Wen Chou of the Time and… Continue reading Relativity on a Human Scale
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Upcoming Events
Two noteworthy events related to How to Teach Physics to Your Dog in the next month: First, and most important, I’m going to be signing books at the Author’s Alley portion of the World Science Festival Street Fair. The fair itself is in Washington Square Park in Manhattan, though the name of the signing program… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Upcoming Events
Bird Blogging
Looking for something else, I was reminded of some pictures I took a week or two ago. This one came out pretty well: This also reminds me that it’s a really nice day here in Niskayuna, and I shouldn’t be spending it all at the computer. So, enjoy the bird picture, and I’ll post something… Continue reading Bird Blogging
Home from DAMOP
Some late nights and wireless problems conspired to keep me from posting anything Friday or Saturday, but I was still at the meeting, and saw some cool talks on coherent X-ray production with lasers, opto-mechanics, and ridiculously good atomic clocks, some of which I hope to talk about later. For the moment, I’m just enjoying… Continue reading Home from DAMOP
Anatomy of a Conference: DAMOP Day 2– The Rise of Precision Measurement
Since I sort of implied a series in the previous post, and I have no better ideas, here’s a look at Thursday’s DAMOP program:
Anatomy of a Conference: DAMOP Day 1
The conference I’m at this week is the annual meeting of the Division of Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics of the American Physical Society (which this year is joint with the Canadian version, the Division of Atomic and Molecular Physics and Photon Interactions, or “DAMPΦ.” The Greek letter is a recent addition– as recently as… Continue reading Anatomy of a Conference: DAMOP Day 1
What Every Dog Should Know About Quantum Physics (2.0)
This is the presentation I gave to the International Baccalaureate class from Schenectady High School today. I tend to re-use talk titles a lot, but this is substantially different than the last talk with this title, as the previous group had read How to Teach Physics to Your Dog first. For this group, I spent… Continue reading What Every Dog Should Know About Quantum Physics (2.0)
Academic Poll: The Best Part of Conferences
I’m leaving for DAMOP tomorrow, and did a presentation for local high-schoolers today, so everything is in chaos here. Thus, a poll to pass the time, inspired by my current activities: The best part of going to a conference is:online survey The word “best” naturally implies a single item, so choose only one.