Old Thesis Club: The Hyperfine Structure and Zeeman Effect for Mercury Resonance Line 2536.52A by Leo Wilson Scott, 1932

Leo Wilson Scott's thesis from 1932.

Having spent a bunch of time talking about heavy stuff in the science blogging community, let’s unwind a bit and kick the week off with a look back at an old Master’s thesis. This one is from 1932, and is almost certainly a draft copy, because it’s extremely cheaply bound in cardboard with the title… Continue reading Old Thesis Club: The Hyperfine Structure and Zeeman Effect for Mercury Resonance Line 2536.52A by Leo Wilson Scott, 1932

What Does Science Online Want to Be?

The ongoing mess over Bora Zivkovic’s harassment of women writers in connection with his editorial role at Scientific American and Science Online has moved into the “What is to be done now?” phase. The most prominent and linkable of these are from Maryn McKenna and Kelly Hills, though I’ve also seen the edges of more… Continue reading What Does Science Online Want to Be?

SteelyKid, Life Scientist

SteelyKid's precise internal structure, illustrated by SteelyKid/

It’s been a rough week, so here’s some cute-kid stuff. The “featured image” above is a giant picture from SteelyKid’s after-school day care, where they’re talking about bodies and bones. It’s a tracing of her outline, filled in with her drawings of bones, joints, a grinning skull, a brain, blood vessels, a spine, and what… Continue reading SteelyKid, Life Scientist

Optics Question: How Did the Photographer Do That?

Max Planck knows what I did last summer. (Photo by Ryan Lash)

Yes, that’s another TED@NYC picture as the “featured image,” but don’t run away! It’s a post about science, I swear! The photo up above is from the Flickr set (which, by the way, has been edited significantly since yesterday…), and I like it a good deal. Mostly because, as the joking caption suggests, that photo… Continue reading Optics Question: How Did the Photographer Do That?

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong

Let me say these things, because they are important. Bora was wrong. Scientific American was wrong. Ofek was wrong, Wrong, WRONG. If you follow science blogs beyond this one, you have no doubt run across the gigantic debacle that erupted this past weekend; if not the first few paragraphs of this Slate piece give a… Continue reading Wrong, Wrong, Wrong

Old Thesis Club: Secondary Emission of Electrons from Molybdenum, by H.A. Smith, 1928

The first rule of Old Thesis Club is not to spill hot beverages on your old theses.

As noted in a previous post on Monte Carlo simulation in 1960, we recently came into possession of a large box of old Master’s theses. The bulk of these are from the 50’s and 60’s, but there are some going back much farther. As I pass these every day I’m in the office, I thought… Continue reading Old Thesis Club: Secondary Emission of Electrons from Molybdenum, by H.A. Smith, 1928

Quantum Viruses?

Influenza virus, from wikimedia.

The Twitter conversation that prompted yesterday’s post about composite objects was apparently prompted by a comment somebody made about how a virus left alone would see its quantum wavefunction spread out on a time scale of minutes. This led to wondering about whether a virus could really be considered a particle that would move as… Continue reading Quantum Viruses?

Supreme Leader of Quantumland

"We must move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards the formation of an interference pattern from many single-particle detections!" (Photo by Ryan Lash)

The nice folks at TED have put up a giant Flickr set of pictures from last week’s event. I’m not sure it’s complete, but I happened to notice it this morning, and it already had several pictures of me in it, which is all I really care about. I particularly like the “featured image” above,… Continue reading Supreme Leader of Quantumland