SteelyKid was delivered by Caesarean section (MacDuff won’t stand a chance…). They let me in to the operating room just before the moment of delivery, and I stuck around while they cleaned her up and did the early tests that they do on newborns, before they brought her over for me and Kate to see.… Continue reading Checklist: Check!
Category: Science
Why I Won’t Make It as a Philosopher
I think I missed this the first time around, but this weekend, I watched the bloggingheads conversation about quantum mechanics between Sean Carroll and David Albert. In it, David makes an extended argument against the Many-Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics (starting about 40:00 into the conversation). The problem is, I can’t quite figure out what… Continue reading Why I Won’t Make It as a Philosopher
Closed Notebook Science
Over at Biocurious, Philip is thinking about digital notebooks, and has found a system that works for him: My computer algebra system of choice is Mathematica, and because of Mathematica’s notebook system, it became extremely straightforward to include sufficient commentary among the analysis and calculations. The important “working” details of my day are recorded on… Continue reading Closed Notebook Science
From Mooney to Zimmer
Looking for a way to kill some time on a Sunday morning? You could do worse than yesterday’s bloggingheads.tv Science Saturday conversation between Chris Mooney and Carl Zimmer: It’s a wide-ranging conversation, covering what to expect from the Obama administration, artifical life, the possibility of life on Mars, Sanjay Gupta, and the future of science… Continue reading From Mooney to Zimmer
Pros and Cons of Interactive Classes
A number of people have commented on the big New York Times article about the new intro physics classes at MIT: At M.I.T., two introductory courses are still required — classical mechanics and electromagnetism — but today they meet in high-tech classrooms, where about 80 students sit at 13 round tables equipped with networked computers.… Continue reading Pros and Cons of Interactive Classes
Pop-Science Book Racing
Over at Cosmic Variance, Sean writes: You know what the world really needs? A good book about time. Google tells me there are only about one and a half million such books right now, but I think you’ll agree that one more really good one is called for. So I’m writing one. From Eternity to… Continue reading Pop-Science Book Racing
With Advisors Like These, Who Needs Policy?
A few years ago, the after-dinner speaker at the DAMOP conference banquet was Presidential Science Advisor John Marburger. As I wrote at the time, I think it’s safe to say that he didn’t make a positive impression on the audience. It also sparked a rather lively discussion afterwards, that some people speculated was the reason… Continue reading With Advisors Like These, Who Needs Policy?
Defining Science
Over at Built on Facts, Matt Springer is easing his way back into blogging by asking “What is Science?”. He offers a simple one-sentence definition: Science is the testing of ideas. That’s all. Every technicality I can think of is avoided so long as the person doing the science is honest. Create fair and objective… Continue reading Defining Science
Why Teach “Modern Physics?”
The scare quotes in the title are to distinguish “Modern Physics” classes like the one I’m teaching this term from modern physics as a general subject, which, of course, all right-thinking people should study in depth. The question comes from a comment by Coriolis on last week’s post about what “Modern Physics” is as a… Continue reading Why Teach “Modern Physics?”
Subtracting Photons from Arbitrary Light Fields
There’s been a fair bit of press for the article Subtracting photons from arbitrary light fields: experimental test of coherent state invariance by single-photon annihilation, published last month in the New Journal of Physics, much of it in roughly the same form as the news story in Physics World (which is published by the same… Continue reading Subtracting Photons from Arbitrary Light Fields