The term “fast break” refers to those situations in the game of basketball in which the offense is attempting to push the ball up the court and score quickly, rather than running a play from their normal offensive set. This usually involves a temporary numerical advantage for the offensive team, as the defenders hurry to… Continue reading Basic Concepts: Fast Break
Beware the Professor’s Negation Field
Piled Higher and Deepr nails it this week: A Pofessor’s Negation Field is the unexplained phenomenon whereby mere spatial proximity to an experimental set-up causes all working demonstrations to fail, despite the apparent laws of Physics or how many times it worked right before he/she walked in the room. I haven’t been on the faculty… Continue reading Beware the Professor’s Negation Field
Moving Light
A marginally less cranky physics post than the previous: the big story in my area of physics this week is probably the Harvard experiment involving the storage and transport of light pulses. Like the ILC announcement, this has been written up in the Times, and you can also read the Harvard press release or the… Continue reading Moving Light
International Hypothetical Collider
The big story in high-energy physics this week is the release of a report on the projected cost of the International (very nearly) Linear Collider (ILC), which comes out to $6.7 billion-with-a-b (not including labor). There’s a story in the Times this morning, and an expert view on Cosmic Variance, and… well, if you read… Continue reading International Hypothetical Collider
Throw a Monkey a Bone
Or, um, a banana. Or something… The Evil Monkey at Neurotopia is soliciting donations to support an essay contest to be run by the Alliance for Science. The idea is to offer prizes for students to write essays about evolution, to encourage students to learn more about the foundations of biology. They’re a registered charity… Continue reading Throw a Monkey a Bone
Archeological Biomechanics
Union is opening a new Center for Bioengineering and Computational Biology this week, and the keynote speech was given last night by Steven Vogel of Duke, on “Power from the People: Life When Muscle Was Our Main Motor.” Basically, this was an hour-long survey of some speculative ideas on what biomechanics can tell us about… Continue reading Archeological Biomechanics
Dorky Poll: Worst Job in Science
Another Thursday, another early lab section. Which means it’s time for another audience participation entry… I think something like this went around ScienceBlogs once before, but if so, it was a while ago, and it’s a fun question: What’s the worst job in science? What’s the nastiest, most unpleasant task facing anyone in science? Cleaning… Continue reading Dorky Poll: Worst Job in Science
Eliminating Majors
Inside Higher Ed reports that Indiana State is eliminating physics and philosophy, among other majors, in a move to streamline their programs. These programs have very few majors relative to the number of faculty (physics has five faculty and nine majors, philosophy four faculty and 19 majors), so they’re on the block due to an… Continue reading Eliminating Majors
Where Do Scientists Learn to Write?
Janet asks “Where do scientists learn to write?” Well, actually, being a good academic, she asks many more questions than that: Do scientists need to write well? If so, in what contexts and for what audiences? If not, why not? Where do scientists really learn to write? What kinds of experiences shape their writing? Are… Continue reading Where Do Scientists Learn to Write?
True Lab Stories: Death of a Laser
So, what’s the deal with last night’s silly obituary? Basically, the main laser in my experiment died because I’m a jackass. More specifically, the laser in question is a diode laser, similar to the kind found in CD and DVD players. These are broadly tunable, available in a wide range of powers and wavelengths, and… Continue reading True Lab Stories: Death of a Laser