It’s a nice demonstration of the oddity of the blogosphere that a libertarian political blog has become my go-to-source for thoughtful blogging about physics education. Thoreau had two good posts yesterday at Unqualified Offerings, one on the problems created by breaking down incorrect intuition, and another on the lack of calculus in calculus-based physics texts:… Continue reading Would You Like Some Calculus With Your Physics?
Category: Science
Dorkiest Family Vacation Ever
Via Michael Nielsen, a page documenting what I really hope is the dorkiest family vacation ever: Project GREAT: General Relativity Einstein/Essen Anniversary Test Clocks, Kids, and General Relativity on Mt Rainier: In September 2005 (for the 50th anniversary of the atomic clock and 100th anniversary of the theory of relativity) we took several cesium clocks… Continue reading Dorkiest Family Vacation Ever
The End of Planets
We had a colloquium yesterday from Ted von Hippel of Siena College, over on Route 9, about “White Dwarf Debris Disks and the Fate of Planetary Systems.” The abstract was: After a brief introduction to white dwarfs and debris disks, I will present observations from the Spitzer Space Telescope and ground-based telescopes of metal-polluted white… Continue reading The End of Planets
Are You Feeling Festive?
I get sent a lot of publicity material by people hoping I’ll mention it on the blog, but because I’m a terrible person, very little of it actually gets used. One thing that shouldn’t be allowed to slip through the cracks, though, is the announcement of the program for the 2009 World Science Festival, June… Continue reading Are You Feeling Festive?
Fairy-Tale Physics 2: Spinning Gold
You might think that Monday’s discourse on thermodynamics in the Goldilocks story was the only children’s story in which physics plays a role, but that’s not true. Physics is everywhere in fairy tales. Take, for example, the story of Rumpelstiltskin, in which a mysterious little man demands a terrible price for helping a miller’s daughter… Continue reading Fairy-Tale Physics 2: Spinning Gold
The Wall Street Journal Gets Entangled
I was surprised, a few days ago, to see a post from ZapperZ recommending a Wall Street Journal article on quantum entanglement. It was surprising not only because it’s weird to see anything in the WSJ that doesn’t have an immediate financial connection, but more than that, I was surprised because the article contains a… Continue reading The Wall Street Journal Gets Entangled
Good Science Books for Kids
The proprietor of Good Mom, Bad Mom emails to point out a post spinning off Monday’s Goldilocks post. A good thing she did, as Technorati has collapsed into utter uselessness, at least for finding people who link to my posts. Her post quotes an unnamed correspondent, who writes: My two daughters are both compulsive readers,… Continue reading Good Science Books for Kids
Quantum Computing in Diamond, on the Arxiv Blog
As I understand it, the Physics ArXiv Blog is not affiliated with the people who actually run the Arxiv (Paul Ginsparg et al.). Which is probably good, as I’m never entirely sure how seriously to take the papers they highlight. Take yesterday’s post, Diamond Challenges for Quantum-Computing Crown, which is about a paper that asks… Continue reading Quantum Computing in Diamond, on the Arxiv Blog
The Faulty Thermodynamics of Children’s Stories
SteelyKid is not yet at the stage where I can usefully read to her– she likes sitting on my lap while I read just fine, but she’s more interested in trying to eat the pages than listening to the story. I was reminded this morning, though, that when she gets to bedtime-story age, I’m going… Continue reading The Faulty Thermodynamics of Children’s Stories
Less Is Also Difficult
I’m an experimentalists through and through, and have always known better than to attempt real theory. On two occasions, though, I’ve been forced to do a little bit of computer simulation work in order to interpret my results. One of these was for the time-resolved collisions experiment, and worked out well. The other was when… Continue reading Less Is Also Difficult