Consider the air around you, which is hopefully at something like “room temperature”– 290-300 K (60-80 F). That temeprature is a measure of the kinetic energy of the moving atoms and molecules making up the gas. At room temperature, the atoms and molecules in the air around you are moving at something close to the… Continue reading How to Make Slow Atoms and Molecules 2
Month: January 2010
How to Make Slow Atoms and Molecules 1
Consider the air around you, which is hopefully at something like “room temperature”– 290-300 K (60-80 F). That temeprature is a measure of the kinetic energy of the moving atoms and molecules making up the gas. At room temperature, the atoms and molecules in the air around you are moving at something close to the… Continue reading How to Make Slow Atoms and Molecules 1
Links for 2010-01-19
Cocktail Party Physics: a bevy of bloggers (#scio10) “I especially liked Carl’s (I think it was Carl) description of this emergent media enterprise as a delicately balanced ecosystem, each segment interdependent on the others for survival. Several weeks ago, Bora! posted one of his occasional rants relishing the collapse of traditional media, in which he… Continue reading Links for 2010-01-19
The Latest from Awful Yuppie Town: Green Divorce
One of the less attractive features of the New York Times is its tendency to feature little profiles of horrible people. They’re not presented that way, of course, but that’s the effect– I read these articles, and just want to slap everybody involved. Today’s story on marital tensions caused by environmental issues is a fine… Continue reading The Latest from Awful Yuppie Town: Green Divorce
Academic Language Poll: Weekly Wossname
A comment on the earlier poll asked about regular series of departmental talks, which the author called a department seminar. We have such a series of talks, bringing in roughly one outside speaker per week, but we call it a colloquium. This calls for a poll to settle the question: An academic department has a… Continue reading Academic Language Poll: Weekly Wossname
Eucatastrophe in Physics
Before leaving Austin on Friday, I had lunch with a former student who is currently a graduate student at the University of Texas, working in an experimental AMO physics lab. I got the tour before lunch– I’m a sucker for lab tours– and things were pretty quiet, as they had recently suffered a catastrophic failure… Continue reading Eucatastrophe in Physics
Academic Poll: How Do You Like Your Interviews?
The always interesting Timothy Burke has a post on the economics of conference attendance, inspired by Brian Croxall’s essay about why he didn’t attend the MLA. The key problem for both of them is that the way the academic job market is structured inn the humanities forces job seekers to attend the MLA for “screening… Continue reading Academic Poll: How Do You Like Your Interviews?
Links for 2010-01-18
BOOK VIEW CAFE BLOG » It seemed like a good idea at the time: The Slushpile Smackdown “The traditional method of sifting slush is in-house – a job usually handed out to a junior because it’s time consuming and occasionally injurious to mental well being. Why? Because anyone with a word processor can submit a… Continue reading Links for 2010-01-18
Radio DogPhysics: Cincinnati Edition
Of special interest to Ohio-type readers: I’m scheduled to do an interview tomorrow, Monday the 18th with Jim Scott of WLW AM in Cincinnati. I’m scheduled to call in at 9:50 am, which looks like it’s after the regular show hours, and thus probably a taped interview. It says LIVE in the schedule I was… Continue reading Radio DogPhysics: Cincinnati Edition
How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update (US Version)
The Barnes and Noble store finder finally indicated the presence of copies in the local stores yesterday, so we made a trip down to the Colonie Center, where they had a half-dozen face out in the Physics section, and probably 15-20 on the new releases table. Woo-hoo! (Now I can shift to fretting that they’ve… Continue reading How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update (US Version)