I’m not talking about the tv show Eureka here, which was mostly silly fluff but not especially problematic. I’m talking about the famous anecdote about Archimedes of Syracuse, who supposedly realized the principle that bears his name when slipping into a bath, distracted by a problem he had been assigned by his king. On realizing… Continue reading “Eureka!” and the Problems Thereof
Category: Science
Work-Life Juggling, Then and Now
A couple of Mondays ago, I was at work and got the dreaded phone call from day care. “[The Pip]’s got conjunctivitis again. It’s really bad, and he needs to go home right away.” Admittedly, this isn’t the very worst phone call a parent could receive, but it’s very much Not Good. Conjunctivitis means a… Continue reading Work-Life Juggling, Then and Now
Visiting Faculty Position at Union College
My trip into the office today was for the express purpose of posting this job ad: We invite applications for Visiting Assistant Professor starting in September 2014. This position is available for up to three years, contingent on satisfactory performance. Applicants should have some teaching experience and a strong commitment to undergraduate education. Union is… Continue reading Visiting Faculty Position at Union College
The Sagan Thing
I am crushingly busy right now– massive book rewrites needed, papers to grade, etc.– so I’ve actually been fairly happy with the general lack of topics that inspire a deep desire to blog. which of course, was promptly upset this morning, when a brief outburst of hating on Carl Sagan erupted on Twitter just as… Continue reading The Sagan Thing
Interference with 10,000-Particle “Particles”: “Matter-wave interference with particles selected from a molecular library with masses exceeding 10000 amu”
I’m teaching Quantum Optics this term, and one of my students picked “Atom Optics” off the list of suggested paper topics. When he asked for pointers, I said “You should check out the diffraction stuff Markus Arndt’s group does.” And just like that, a paper from the Arndt group turns up from the Arxiv Blog…… Continue reading Interference with 10,000-Particle “Particles”: “Matter-wave interference with particles selected from a molecular library with masses exceeding 10000 amu”
Old Thesis Club: Experiments on Gravitation by Earle Milton Bigsbee, 1932
One of the interesting things about the pile of old theses we found in the basement is the opportunity to look at things that nobody believes any more. Past installments of the Old Thesis Club have shown people fumbling toward an understanding of quantum physics via electron scattering and spectroscopy, but in both of those… Continue reading Old Thesis Club: Experiments on Gravitation by Earle Milton Bigsbee, 1932
The Ultimate Alien Message
In January of 1990, a friend and I designed the ultimate message to an alien civilization. Okay, admittedly, this wan’t a recognized scientific accomplishment. After all, in January of 1990, I was a freshman at Williams. The alien message we designed was part of a first-year Winter Study seminar class. Winter Study, for those not… Continue reading The Ultimate Alien Message
Finding That There’s Nothing to Find
In 1967, a team of scientists hauled a big pile of gear– electronics, particle detectors, a giant slab of iron– into the burial chamber at the base of one of the pyramids at Giza. This sounds like a scene from a science fiction or fantasy novel– throw in the fact that their first attempt was… Continue reading Finding That There’s Nothing to Find
Individualists, Working Together
An article titled “Individualism: The legacy of great physicists,” by Ricardo Heras. crossed my various social media feeds a half-dozen times on Tuesday, so I finally broke down and read it, and I’m puzzled. The argument is very straightforward– single-author publications used to be common, now they’re not, this might indicate a lack of truly… Continue reading Individualists, Working Together
One, Two, Many, Lots: Investigating the Start of Many-Body Physics
Two papers with a similar theme crossed my social media feeds in the last couple of days. You might think this is just a weird coincidence, but I’m choosing to take it as a sign to write about them for the blog. So, what are these papers, and what’s the theme? One is the final… Continue reading One, Two, Many, Lots: Investigating the Start of Many-Body Physics