Just about everybody has heard of the Twin Paradox in relativity: one twin becomes as astronaut and sets off for Alpha Centauri, the other remains on Earth at mission control. Thanks to time dilation, the two age at different rates, and the one who made the trip out and back ends up younger than the… Continue reading Physics Quiz: Accelerated Twins
Academic Poll: Pop Quiz, Hotshot
Tuesday is a heavy teaching day for me– I’m in lab from 9-4, basically– so here’s something to occupy the time. Oh, no! It’s a pop quiz: Pop quizzes are:(survey software) (In case the phrase is an American idiom, a “pop quiz” refers to a short test given in class with no advance warning.) This… Continue reading Academic Poll: Pop Quiz, Hotshot
Wolf Prize for Quantum Pioneers
Congratulations to Alain Aspect, John Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger for winning the 2010 Wolf Prize in Phyiscs: The 2010 Wolf Prize in Physics will be shared by Prof. John F. Clauser of the US; Prof. Alain Aspect of France’s Ãcole Normale Supérieure de Cachan; and Prof. Anton Zeilinger of the University of Vienna. The jury… Continue reading Wolf Prize for Quantum Pioneers
Links for 2010-02-02
Is Our Students Learning? « Easily Distracted “That’s what I worry about when I hear that there are too many “relativists” around: that the people complaining the most about that supposed surplus are the most supremely relativistic folks you might ever imagine encountering. “a (tags: academia education politics blogs easily-distracted philosophy ethics society culture) Career… Continue reading Links for 2010-02-02
A Message from the Chair
The message is: “I have a chair!” SteelyKid’s new chair is a kid-sized black fake-leather armchair from Target. We originally set out looking for a kid-sized table and chair set that she could use to draw on, but the only ones on offer at Babysaurus were chintzy particle board things with Disney characters all over… Continue reading A Message from the Chair
Laser Smackdown: Amazing Laser Applications
Last week, I asked for nominations of the most amazing laser application, with the idea being that I will collect a list, write up the top vote-getters in a series of blog posts, and then we will have a vote to determine what is THE coolest laser application of ALL TIME! At least, you know,… Continue reading Laser Smackdown: Amazing Laser Applications
Upcoming Appearances: How to Teach Physics to Your Dog Live
Two events in the next couple of weeks at which I will be appearing live and in person: 1) This Thursday, Feb. 4, I will be giving a talk at the University of Maryland, College Park at 3:30 pm in the Lecture Hall (room 1110) in the Kim Engineering Building. The title of the talk… Continue reading Upcoming Appearances: How to Teach Physics to Your Dog Live
Links for 2010-02-01
YouTube – Neil Degrasse Tyson: “If you’re scientifically literate the world looks very different to you” “If you’re not scientifically literate, in a way, you’re disenfranchising yourself.” (tags: science education video youtube politics society culture) The Digital Cuttlefish: The Spirit Of Spirit “Why do we care about poor little Spirit? A robot is shutting down;… Continue reading Links for 2010-02-01
The Amazon Kerfuffle
(I really loathe both the longstanding practice of marking a scandal by appending “-gate” to a name and the newer version “-fail.” I don’t have a better alternative, but I hate both of those. Somebody get to work on a better scandal signifier.) So, the hot topic of the moment is the hissy-cow being thrown… Continue reading The Amazon Kerfuffle
From Eternity to the Web
The Firedoglake Book Salon with Sean Carroll last night was a lot of fun. I was generally impressed with the level of the questions, and the tone of the discussion. We went through all of the questions I had typed out in advance (I type fairly slowly, and revise obsessively, so it’s hard for me… Continue reading From Eternity to the Web