Bonus Baby Blogging

It’s a beautiful day here in Niskayuna, and we have family visiting. So here’s a bonus baby picture (also in use as my Facebook profile picture at the moment), in hopes that while you’re distracted by the cute, I can sneak outside with SteelyKid and enjoy the nice weather. Everybody say “Awwwwww….”

Links for 2010-05-15

News: Profs Turned Pols – Inside Higher Ed “From local school board races to Congressional campaigns, an effort is under way to push scientists out of the lab and onto the stump. Through a series of Web-based seminars and organizing efforts on university campuses, Scientists & Engineers for America (SEA) has been luring professors and… Continue reading Links for 2010-05-15

Bohemian Mechanical Rhapsody

Blame Bryan O’Sullivan for this– after his comment about misreading “Bohmian Mechanics” as “Bohemian Mechanics,” I couldn’t get this silly idea out of my head. And this is the result. I like to think that this was Brian May‘s first draft (he does have a Ph.D. in astrophysics, after all), before Freddie Mercury got hold… Continue reading Bohemian Mechanical Rhapsody

Links for 2010-05-14

Blue laser awesomeness : Dot Physics “Yes, green laser pointers are cool. Especially when you use them to make stuff fluoresce. Ok, what about a blue laser pointer? They are getting surprisingly cheap (Amazon has a 10 mW for pretty cheap). Still not cheap enough for me. But, you know what? Some of the physics… Continue reading Links for 2010-05-14

Quick Impressions of Bohmian Mechanics

I get asked my opinion of Bohmian mechanics a fair bit, despite the fact that I know very little about it. This came up again recently, so I got some suggested reading from Matt Leifer, on the grounds that I ought to learn something about it if I’m going to keep being asked about it.… Continue reading Quick Impressions of Bohmian Mechanics

Knowing What’s Essential Is Essential

Spinning off a blog at Inside Higher Ed, the Dean Dad has a post on deciding what classes are essential: My personal sense of it is that the distinction between core and periphery is largely a function of purpose. If your goal in life is to be an exhibited artist, then you might well decide… Continue reading Knowing What’s Essential Is Essential

Links for 2010-05-13

Cocktail Party Physics: oily hair is not a problem – its a solution for the gulf coast “One of the more interesting solutions proposed (aside from dropping trash in the pipe to block the oil) also involves using fibers; however, the fibers in question are human hair. Chicken feathers, straw, and wool have all been… Continue reading Links for 2010-05-13

Inconstant Constants: “Probing fundamental constant evolution with redshifted conjugate-satellite OH lines”

Via Jennifer Ouellette on Twitter, I ran across a Discovery News story touting a recent arxiv preprint claiming to see variation in the fine-structure constant. It’s a basically OK story, but garbles a few details, so I thought it would be worth giving it the ResearchBlogging treatment, in the now-traditional Q&A format. What did they… Continue reading Inconstant Constants: “Probing fundamental constant evolution with redshifted conjugate-satellite OH lines”