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An exploration of physics and the quest to understand our world.
Matt Springer is a graduate student of physics at Texas A&M university. He is also an occasional writer and tinkerer, and he is probably too curious for his own good.
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September 30, 2009
In theory I like solar power a lot. There's a lot to be said for energy that falls from the sky for free for as long as we care to use it. But actually getting that energy to do useful...
Posted by Matt Springer at 12:22 PM • 26 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 28, 2009
Category: Sunday Function
Find the function, with a prize!
Posted by Matt Springer at 12:56 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 24, 2009
Astronomers and space exploration enthusiasts around the web are expressing lots of enthusiasm for the discovery of water on the moon by the Indian Chandrayaan-1 orbiter. Long story short (Ethan has a good version of the long story), the probe...
Posted by Matt Springer at 2:16 PM • 16 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 23, 2009
Ideas about the nature of light have been around for thousands of years, but until Newton came along in the 17th century most of these attempts were little more than speculation. Newton himself held to the view of light as...
Posted by Matt Springer at 1:47 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 22, 2009
Every once in a while it's a good idea to remember that even the simplest-looking physical systems can have completely bonkers behavior. The pendulum is certainly one of those systems. It's so simple that it's a mainstay of freshman classes,...
Posted by Matt Springer at 12:27 PM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 21, 2009
Category: Worked Problems
Note to the reader: this post is relatively stiff mathematically. For those not mathematically inclined, I think you might enjoy reading it anyway and enjoying it as you would a tour of a widget factory; even if you're not worried...
Posted by Matt Springer at 9:00 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 20, 2009
Category: Sunday Function
The vast majority of the functions we've talked about over all these Sundays have been ones that are expressible as a relationship between two numbers x and y. Sometimes the relationship is simple, sometimes it's fairly complicated. Mostly though, we...
Posted by Matt Springer at 8:36 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 17, 2009
I note an interesting short piece by James Hrynyshyn about a bit of a local controversy in Nova Scotia about the installation of a tower to provide wireless internet to the area. Leading the opposition is a guy worried about...
Posted by Matt Springer at 12:54 PM • 29 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 16, 2009
Let's say you've got a water molecule. It doesn't have to be water, but it helps if it's one we can easily picture: You can imagine water vapor as an ensemble of many of these molecules flying and bouncing around...
Posted by Matt Springer at 12:24 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 14, 2009
One of my fellow ScienceBloggers, ScienceWoman, has made a few waves by saying the following: I am against accommodating our full-time worker, part-time graduate student students by moving a significant number of our classes to evening hours. There I said...
Posted by Matt Springer at 1:50 PM • 21 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
PZ Myers 11.19.2009
James Hrynyshyn 11.20.2009
Ed Brayton 11.21.2009
PZ Myers 11.14.2009
Greg Laden 11.21.2009
