Reading this article reminds me that I forgot to talk about the poetry reading from a few weeks ago. In lieu of a regular colloquium talk one week this term, we co-hosted a poetry reading by George Drew, a local poet with a book of physics-themed poems. There are some sample poems on that site,… Continue reading Poetry About Physicists
New Frontiers in Spam
I just got a link-pimping piece of spam that suggests they’re improving the targeting algorithm for Subject: lines: Subject: hep-th index update (For those not in the know, hep-th is the High Energy Physics- Theoretical category on the porn server.) It’s still a “close, but not quite,” as I read hep-th about as well as… Continue reading New Frontiers in Spam
News, Sports, and Information
Two items from the sports pages this morning: 1) Not really a sports story, but I saw it first on ESPN: two Duke lacrosse players have been indicted. It really doesn’t deserve a whole “CSI: Durham” post, because it’s a sealed indictment, so there’s basically no real information. But if you’re following the story, there’s… Continue reading News, Sports, and Information
Lecture Notes Dump
For those following along with my Quantum Optics class, here’s a bunch of lectures about photons: Lecture 7: Commutators, simple harmonic oscillators, creation and annihilation operators, photons. Lecture 8: Coherent states of the electromagnetic field. Lecture 9: Number-phase uncertainty, squeezed states, interferometry. Lecture 10: Photon anti-correlation revisited, beamsplitters and vacuum states. This material, unsurprisingly, produced… Continue reading Lecture Notes Dump
The String Theory Diet
Are you unhappy with the way you look? Feel like you’re carrying around some large extra dimensions? Want to compactify your manifold before the summer conference season gets here? If you answered “Yes!” to any of those questions, then you’re ready for the String Theory Diet! Each rich, satisfying meals of eleven-dimensional noodles, and watch… Continue reading The String Theory Diet
A Nice Day for Not Blogging
That’s what yesterday was, at least. It was a gorgeous spring day here, which we spent mostly outside, first doing some errand-running, and then some lounging in the sun reading and napping. I didn’t even try to keep track of what was posted on other blogs, and I didn’t miss it all that much– it… Continue reading A Nice Day for Not Blogging
Double Entendres in Physics
RPM is dropping his Double Entendre Fridays, which threatens to cut off the world supply of really dorky sex jokes. But never fear, I’m here to pick it up with a physics version! Back when I was a lowly undergrad, I was the TA for an optics lab section, and was helping some students to… Continue reading Double Entendres in Physics
And the Problem is… What, Exactly?
The usual suspects are all upset about John Barrow’s crack about Richard Dawkins: When Selfish Gene author Richard Dawkins challenged physicist John Barrow on his formulation of the constants of nature at last summer’s Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellowship lectures, Barrow laughed and said, “You have a problem with these ideas, Richard, because you’re not really a… Continue reading And the Problem is… What, Exactly?
Open Thread
I know the cookie bug is still afflicting some commenters– the folks who make Movable Type are aware of the bug, and it will be fixed with the next release, whenever that is. You can get around the bug by either deleting cookies from scienceblogs.com, or by logging out from TypeKey, if you have a… Continue reading Open Thread
We’re Number Two!
A slightly more serious topic, also noted via Inside Higher Ed: Money magazine has deeemd “College Professor” the second-best job in America. The fact that it trails “software engineer” makes me a little dubious about their methodology, but there you go– I have the second-best job in the country. Of course, looking at the detailed… Continue reading We’re Number Two!