I sent in the page proofs for How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog this week, and by way of celebration, I went out and helped boost the economy by buying some consumer electronics: Yes, I now have an iPad. Just one with wi-fi, not the 3G version, because we already send Verizon enough money,… Continue reading Help Me With My New Toy
Thursday Toddler Blogging 1103011
This weekend, we did a little more furniture-moving to prepare for the imminent arrival of FutureSibling!, which included moving SteelyKid’s black chair upstairs into her room, and putting the portable crib back in front of the fireplace in the living room. Unsurprisingly, she wanted to get in it; surprisingly, she allowed me to take a… Continue reading Thursday Toddler Blogging 1103011
Reinventing Discovery by Michael Nielsen
This coming June will mark ten years since I started this blog (using Blogger on our own domain– here’s the very first post) and writing about physics on the Internet. This makes me one of the oldest science bloggers in the modern sense– Derek Lowe is the only one I know for sure has been… Continue reading Reinventing Discovery by Michael Nielsen
Thursday Terrified Parent Blogging 102711
A couple of cell-phone pictures from last weekend, on an early-evening run to one of the local playgrounds. The sun was pretty well down when SteelyKid decided she wanted to climb on the giant rope climbing structure they have. she’s gone on this before, but it’s never lasted long, so we figured, why not? (It’s… Continue reading Thursday Terrified Parent Blogging 102711
Because 4% of the Energy Controls 100% of the Photons
“I work around the clock– 1043 Planck times per second– providing the gravitational attraction to hold this galaxy cluster together. And some baryonic cosmologist wants to explain me away as a modification of Newtonian gravity? “I have been silent for 13.7 billion years, but no more. “I AM THE 96%” (Original Pandora Cluster image from… Continue reading Because 4% of the Energy Controls 100% of the Photons
Strongly Correlated Physics in a Superposition State
It’s been a while since I posted anything science-y, and I’ve got some time between flipping pancakes, so here’s an odd thing from the last few weeks of science news. Last week, there was an article in Nature about the wonders of string theory applied to condensed matter physics. This uses the “AdS/CFT” relationship, by… Continue reading Strongly Correlated Physics in a Superposition State
Thursday Toddler Blogging 102011
SteelyKid was in an exceptionally happy mood the other night, and so I not only got the silly face shot from the previous post, but also this more traditional Toddler Blogging picture, with Appa, no less: All together now: Awwwwwww…. Appa, you may or may not recall, has served as our standard length reference for… Continue reading Thursday Toddler Blogging 102011
Donors Choose Fundraiser: Double Your Impact
I’ve been too busy to really work on the DonorsChoose fundraiser this year, but it’s worth taking a little time to mention this opportunity: Starting today and running through Saturday midnight, the DonorsChoose board will match donations to the Science Bloggers for Students fundraiser. thus, a $5 donation becomes $10, $10 becomes $20, and, well,… Continue reading Donors Choose Fundraiser: Double Your Impact
Experimentalists Aren’t Idiots: The Neutrino Saga Continues
In a lot of ways, the OPERA fast-neutrino business has been less a story about science than a story about the perils of the new media landscape. We went through another stage of this a day or two ago, with all sorts of people Twittering, resharing, and repeating in other ways a story that the… Continue reading Experimentalists Aren’t Idiots: The Neutrino Saga Continues
SteelyKid the Builder
Because it’s been a while since I posted a cute toddler picture, and because SteelyKid actually let me shoot some pictures of her yesterday for the first time in a while. Here she is, playing with Legos: Of course, building giant towers is only half the fun of playing with Legos: