One of my Christmas gifts this year was a Seek Thermal camera, so I can continue my transformation into Rhett Allain. What’s this for? Why, physics, of course. Such as this video of the operation of the Christmas pyramid my parents picked up in Germany, and had set up at the start of Christmas dinner:… Continue reading Holiday Thermal Physics
Category: Science
Advent Calendar of Science Stories 24: You
When I launched this back at the start of December, I honestly wasn’t sure I would have enough good stories to make it through. I suspected I might end up going a week or two, then quietly letting the whole thing drop. As we come to the end, though, I’ve run out of days well… Continue reading Advent Calendar of Science Stories 24: You
Advent Calendar of Science Stories 23: Parity
For the penultimate advent calendar of science stories post, we’ll turn to a great experimentalist with a great biography. This story also appears in Eureka: Discovering your Inner Scientist, but it’s too good not to re-use. Chien-Shiung Wu was born in china in 1912, at right around the time education of women was first legalized.… Continue reading Advent Calendar of Science Stories 23: Parity
Advent Calendar of Science Stories 22: Hazing
One of the very best books I ran across in the process of doing research for Eureka is The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Twentieth-Century Physics by Robert P. Crease and Charles C. Mann. It’s an extremely detailed treatment of the development of quantum theory, and includes anecdotes that I haven’t seen elsewhere.… Continue reading Advent Calendar of Science Stories 22: Hazing
Advent Calendar of Science Stories 21: Hot and Cold
Another weekend day, another story I’m going to outsource a bit. In this case, to the original scientist, who at the time of his discovery was a 13-year-old schoolboy in Tanzania: In 1963, when I was in form 3 in Magamba Secondary School, Tanzania, I used to make ice-cream. The boys at the school do… Continue reading Advent Calendar of Science Stories 21: Hot and Cold
Advent Calendar of Science Stories 20: Dot Physics 1976
We’re going to depart from the chronological ordering again, because it’s the weekend and I have to do a bunch of stuff with the kids. Which means I’m in search of a story I can outsource… In this case, I’m outsourcing to myself– this is a genuine out-take from Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist, specifically… Continue reading Advent Calendar of Science Stories 20: Dot Physics 1976
Advent Calendar of Science Stories 19: Eucatastrophe
As I endlessly repeat, I’m an experimentalist by training an inclination, so I especially appreciate stories about experimental science. There’s something particularly wonderful about the moment when an experiment clicks together, usually after weeks or months of hard, frustrating work, when things just keep breaking. Of course, sometimes, breaking stuff can be a Good Thing.… Continue reading Advent Calendar of Science Stories 19: Eucatastrophe
Method and Its Discontents
Given that I am relentlessly flogging a book about the universality of the scientific process (Available wherever books are sold! They make excellent winter solstice holiday gifts!), I feel like I ought to try to say something about the latest kerfuffle about the scientific method. This takes the form of an editorial in Nature complaining… Continue reading Method and Its Discontents
Advent Calendar of Science Stories 18: Third Time’s the Charm
The winter solstice holidays are a time for family and togetherness, so building off yesterday’s post about the great Marie Skłodowska Curie, we’ll stay together with her family. Specifically her daughter Irène Joliot-Curie and her husband Frédéric. The Joliot-Curies are possible answers to a number of Nobel Prize trivia questions– only mother and daughter to… Continue reading Advent Calendar of Science Stories 18: Third Time’s the Charm
Advent Calendar of Science Stories 17: Kickstarter in 1921
There’s no way I could possibly go through a long history-of-science blog series without mentioning the great Marie Skłodowska Curie, one of the very few people in history to win not one but two Nobel Prizes for her scientific work– if nothing else, Polish pride would demand it. She made a monumental contribution to physics… Continue reading Advent Calendar of Science Stories 17: Kickstarter in 1921