Yesterday’s big post on why I think people should embrace scientific thinking in a more conscious way than they do already (because my claim is that most people already use scientific thinking, they’re just not aware that they’re doing it) is clearly a kind of explanation of the reason behind my next book, but what… Continue reading Modern Physics and Scientific Thinking
Category: Theory
Against Kaku-ism
I had lunch with Ethan Zuckerman yesterday, and we were talking about technology and communicating science to a mass audience, and Michio Kaku came up. Specifically, the fact that he’s prone to saying stuff that’s just flat wrong, if not batshit crazy– see this angry post from 2010 for an example. It was amusing, then,… Continue reading Against Kaku-ism
The Theoretical Minimum by Leonard Susskind and George Hrabovsky
This is the physics book that’s generating the most buzz just at the moment, by noted string theorist Leonard Susskind and George Hrabovsky, based on a general-audience course Susskind’s been running for years. It’s doing very well, with an Amazon rank in the 300’s, which is kind of remarkable for a book with this many… Continue reading The Theoretical Minimum by Leonard Susskind and George Hrabovsky
The Higgs Boson in Context
I ran across this recently while looking for something else, and was reminded of it by this discussion of jargon. It’s an attempt to explain the general historical context of the whole Higgs Boson thing, and why it’s important. I improvised this in response to somebody’s question about how I would explain that, drawing mostly… Continue reading The Higgs Boson in Context
Experiments Are Not Afterthoughts
There’s been a bunch of talk recently about a poll on quantum interpretations that showed physicists badly divided between the various interpretations– Copenhagen, Many-Worlds, etc.– a result which isn’t actually very surprising. Sean Carroll declares that the summary plot is “The Most Embarrassing Graph in Modern Physics, which I think is a bit of an… Continue reading Experiments Are Not Afterthoughts
Top Physics Breakthroughs of the 13th Baktun
We’re at that time of year where people publish lists of top stories of the year, but as many crazy people will be happy to remind you, this Friday marks the end of another calendrical period, in the Mayan calendar. So, I’m going to steal an idea from a college classmate on Facebook, who wrote:… Continue reading Top Physics Breakthroughs of the 13th Baktun
Shedding Light on Quantum Gravity: “Probing Planck-scale physics with quantum optics”
It’s been a while since I did any ResearchBlogging posts, because it turns out that having an infant and a toddler really cuts into your blogging time. Who knew? I keep meaning to get back to it, though, and there was a flurry of excitement the other day about a Nature Physics paper proposing a… Continue reading Shedding Light on Quantum Gravity: “Probing Planck-scale physics with quantum optics”
On the Interconnectedness of Things
I finally got a copy of Cox and Forshaw’s The Quantum Universe, and a little time to read it, in hopes that it would shed some light on the great electron state controversy. I haven’t finished the book, but I got through the relevant chapter and, well, it doesn’t, really. That is, the discussion in… Continue reading On the Interconnectedness of Things
On Cox vs. Swans
The other controversial thing this week that I shouldn’t get involved in is the debate over whether Brian Cox is talking nonsense in a recent discussion of the Pauli Exclusion Principle. Tom at Swans on Tea kicked this off with an inflammatory title, and Cox turned up in the comments to take umbrage at that.… Continue reading On Cox vs. Swans
Most Difficult Course?
Regular reader Johan Larson sends in a good question about academic physics: You have written about teaching various courses in modern physics, a subject that has a fearsome reputation among students for skull-busting difficulty. That suggests a broader question: what is the most difficult course at your university? Or even more broadly, how would one… Continue reading Most Difficult Course?