One of the great things about “Fermi Problems” is that there are multiple ways of attacking them. So, for example, when considering the death ray plot yesterday, I used medical devices as an example system to assess the plausibility of the plot, while Physics Buzz talked total energy. But those aren’t the only ways to… Continue reading More on “Death Rays”: Another Estimation Technique
On “Death Rays”
One bad thing about SteelyKid’s preschool graduation yesterday was that it drained my phone battery, causing me to miss an interview request from a local TV station looking for somebody to talk about a a couple of local guys arrested for a plot to build a “death ray” from X-ray components. This is pretty far… Continue reading On “Death Rays”
Kids These Days
SteelyKid’s preschool “graduation” was today, and in addition to a certificate with her name on it, she got a CD of her class’s favorite songs and a composite picture of her class. I’d include an image, but it wouldn’t reproduce well, and anyway, I try not to post pictures of other people’s kids. What I… Continue reading Kids These Days
“Singular Oddities of Character”: Cavendish and Dirac
One of the oddities of writing the book-in-progress is that it involves a lot more history-of-science than I’m used to. which means I’m doing things like checking out 800-page scientific biographies from the college library so I can use them to inform 500 word sections of 4000 word chapters. One of these is Cavendish: The… Continue reading “Singular Oddities of Character”: Cavendish and Dirac
Quasi Poll: Most Needed Pop-Science Biography?
I’ve got a ton of stuff that needs to get done this week, but I don’t want the blog to be completely devoid of new content, so here’s a quasi-poll question for my wise and worldly readers: What scientist is most in need of a good popular biography? By “popular biography,” I mean things like… Continue reading Quasi Poll: Most Needed Pop-Science Biography?
Graduation 2013
The other big event of the weekend was Commencement at Union. I didn’t make it in time for the academic procession and all that, but I did hear John Lewis’s speech, which was great. More importantly, though, I was there to see our students graduate, and congratulate them in person. As I told my thesis… Continue reading Graduation 2013
Hall of Fame
This past weekend was more complicated than it might’ve been. On Friday night, we drove to Whitney Point to my parents’ house, then on Sunday morning very early we drove back to Niskayuna so I could make it to Union’s graduation on Sunday (I arrived just in time to hear Civil Rights icon John Lewis… Continue reading Hall of Fame
Of Controversies and Clocks
A few months back, I got a call from a writer at a physics magazine, asking for comments on a controversy within AMO physics. I read a bunch of papers, and really didn’t quite understand the problem; not so much the issue at stake, but why it was so heated. When I spoke to the… Continue reading Of Controversies and Clocks
Few-Body Systems: Cooler Than You Might Think
Hey, dude? Yeah, what’s up? I’m not normally the one who initiates this, but I was wondering: When you were at DAMOP last week, did you see any really neat physics? Oh, sure, tons of stuff. It was a little thinner than some past meetings– a lot of the Usual Suspects didn’t make the trip–… Continue reading Few-Body Systems: Cooler Than You Might Think
Affirmation Means Employment
I saw a bunch of people yesterday tweeting approval of John Hawks’s complaint about academic timidity when it comes to blogging: The bottom line is: People need to decide if they want to be heard, or if they want to be validated. I have long been an associate editor at PLoS ONE, and once I… Continue reading Affirmation Means Employment