The physics story of the moment is probably the detection of single top quarks at Fermilab. Top quarks, like most other exotic particles, are usually produced in particle-antiparticle pairs, with some fraction of the kinetic energy of two colliding particles being converted into the mass of the quark-antiquark pair (see this old post). There’s a… Continue reading Single Top Quark, Seeking Antiquark. No Freaks.
Month: December 2006
The Bizarre Economics of Tuition
The Times had an article the other day about the warped economics of higher education: So early in 2000 the board [of Trustees of Ursinus College] voted to raise tuition and fees 17.6 percent, to $23,460 (and to include a laptop for every incoming student to help soften the blow). Then it waited to see… Continue reading The Bizarre Economics of Tuition
Science on the Tree 3
A long day today, so we’ll go with an obvious one:
The Budget Mess
The Democrats have decided to punt on the budget, which the outgoing Republican Congress left unfinished in a childish fit of pique. Instead of completing the usual budget process, the incoming Congress plans to pass a “continuing resolution,” to fund 2007 operations of Federal agencies at the same level as 2006. See, people, this is… Continue reading The Budget Mess
Classic Edition: Space Trilogy, Volume 4
Here’s the day’s final repost of an old blog post about space policy. This is yet another post from 2004, with the usual caveats about linkrot and dated numbers and the like. This one is more or less a direct response to comments made in response to the previous post attempting to argue that using… Continue reading Classic Edition: Space Trilogy, Volume 4
Classic Edition: The Moon is a Harsh Wossname
Yet another in today’s series of reposts of articles about space policy. This is another old blog post from 2004, back when the Moon-and-Mars plan was first announced. As with the previous posts, any numbers or links in the post may be badly out of date, and there are some good comments at the original… Continue reading Classic Edition: The Moon is a Harsh Wossname
Classic Edition: The Arrogance of Complexity
This is the second in a series of old posts about space exploration in general, and the Bush Moon-and-Mars plan specifically. This is a repost of an old blog post from 2004, so any numbers or links in the post may be out of date. There were also a few comments to the original article,… Continue reading Classic Edition: The Arrogance of Complexity
Classic Edition: Man vs. Machine in Space
As threatened in passing yesterday, I dug up some old posts on space policy, and will re-post them here. This first one dates from January of 2004, around the time that Bush first floated the idea of the new Moon-and-Mars plan that’s re-shaping NASA. The original post has a ton of links in it, and… Continue reading Classic Edition: Man vs. Machine in Space
Let Us Now Praise Famous Scots
There’s a very nice article in the new Physics World in praise of James Clerk Maxwell of “Maxwell’s Equations.” Incredibly, Maxwell is probably somewhat underappreciated, what with wrapping up all of classical electromagnetism in one neat and Lorentz-invariant package, making pioneering contributions to thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, and taking the first color photograph, using basically… Continue reading Let Us Now Praise Famous Scots
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
If you can, consider throwing it to help with the maintenance of Mixed States and the other science-themed feed aggregators at Something Similar. Mixed States is back after a long absence (long enough that I had stopped checking), and it’s reminded me what an excellent resource this is. The proprietor is looking for $135 to… Continue reading Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?