Not long ago, a new preprint on the fine structure constant got a bunch of press, nicely summed up by the Knight Science Journalism Tracker last week. I meant to say something about this last week, but what with it being the first week of classes and all, I didn’t find the time. I still… Continue reading Why I’m Skeptical About the Changing Fine-Structure Constant
Category: Theory
Counterfactual Physics: Lorentz Variance?
The theory of relativity takes its name from a very simple and appealing idea: that the laws of physics should look the same to moving observers as to stationary ones. “Laws of physics” here includes Maxwell’s equations for electricity and magnetism, which necessarily means that moving observers must see the same speed of light as… Continue reading Counterfactual Physics: Lorentz Variance?
What Uncertainty Means to Me– And You, and the Universe
In chapter 2 of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, there’s a footnote about the ubiquity of uncertainty principle analogies in the mass media: To give you an idea of the breadth of subjects in which this shows up, in June 2008, Google turned up citations of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in (among others)… Continue reading What Uncertainty Means to Me– And You, and the Universe
Without Experiment, There Is No Theory
A lot of people have been blogging and Twittering about this subway map of science, which puts various branches of science in the place of the lines on the London Underground map, showing connections between them. It’s a huge graphic, but a kind of cool image. I do, however, have a problem with it, which… Continue reading Without Experiment, There Is No Theory
High Excitement in Review: “Quantum information with Rydberg atoms”
I’m a big fan of review articles. For those not in academic science, “review article” means a long (tens of pages) paper collecting together the important results of some field of science, and presenting an overview of the whole thing. These vary somewhat in just how specific they are– some deal with both experiment and… Continue reading High Excitement in Review: “Quantum information with Rydberg atoms”
Quantum Optics from the Opposite Direction: QED Limits on Laser Intensities
Most of the time, when we talk about seeing quantum effects from light, we talk about extremely weak beams– looking at intensities where one photon more or less represents a significant change in the intensity of the light. Last week, though, Physics Buzz wrote up a paper that goes in the other direction: they suggest… Continue reading Quantum Optics from the Opposite Direction: QED Limits on Laser Intensities
Technology, Entertainment, and Quantum Kookiness
A reader emails to ask about a new-to-me theory of physics, called “Quantum Space Theory” being promoted by a fellow named Thad Roberts. I wouldn’t usually bother with this, but Roberts was one of the speakers at TEDx Boulder. this is disappointing, to put it mildly– TED is a respected organization, and I don’t like… Continue reading Technology, Entertainment, and Quantum Kookiness
Cold Atoms and Cooper Pairs
So, last week, I talked about how superconductors work, and I have in the past talked about the idea of making cold atoms look like electrons. And obvious question, then, whould be: Do cold atoms systems allow us to learn anything about superconductivity? The answer here is, unfortunately, “Yes and no.” That’s pretty weaselly, dude.… Continue reading Cold Atoms and Cooper Pairs
Reader Request: What’s the Matter with Stat Mech?
On the reader request thread, commenter Brad had several questions; one led to yesterday’s post about superconductors, another is a critical issue in pedagogy: Finally, why did all of my stat[istical] mech[anics] courses suck? Statistical Mechanics is the branch of physics that deals with building up macroscopic thermal properties of materials from a microscopic model… Continue reading Reader Request: What’s the Matter with Stat Mech?
Baez on Leggett on High-Temperature Superconductors
I had the tab open and everything, and still somehow forgot to include a link to John Baez’s blog post reporting on a talk by Tony Leggett which directly addresses some of the questions asked about yesterday’s superconductivity post. It’s about a talk called “Cuprate superconductivity: the current state of play” (“state of play” apparently… Continue reading Baez on Leggett on High-Temperature Superconductors