Now on ScienceBlogs: Rhodes Secretary: Wall Street Megabonuses Draining Our Young Talent
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.
Help Matt not starve! Use this link to amazon.com
October 30, 2009
There's an interesting article in New Scientist that purports to describe "seven questions that keep physicists up at night". The list is very heavy on the "deep questions" that tend to percolate around the more esoteric quarters of the high-energy...
Posted by Matt Springer at 1:41 PM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 28, 2009
Bet your friend a dollar that he can't do it, and physics will make you a dollar richer.
Posted by Matt Springer at 12:57 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 26, 2009
There's a stereotype that it's declasse for us intellectual aesthetes to enjoy football, but I don't care. I enjoy it anyway. Whether you spent any time this weekend watching football or not, I'd like to pose a quick and (maybe!)...
Posted by Matt Springer at 11:33 AM • 25 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 23, 2009
Literally "in a cave" deep.
Posted by Matt Springer at 10:00 AM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 19, 2009
There's a question that gets posed toward the beginning of intro physics classes to gauge the students' understanding of acceleration. If you fire a bullet horizontally while at the same instant dropping a bullet from the same height, which hits...
Posted by Matt Springer at 1:40 PM • 26 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 18, 2009
Category: Sunday Function
Big O!
Posted by Matt Springer at 1:35 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 16, 2009
Today Texas A&M was a bit of a madhouse. Huge crowds, hundreds of police, unseasonably-suited and grim-faced men with mirrored sunglasses, unmarked helicopters circling overhead, TV cameras circling below, and completely borked traffic. Why? Not just one but two Presidents...
Posted by Matt Springer at 5:36 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 15, 2009
I propose a Fermi Problem. Over the lifetime of an average light bulb, what is the total mass of all the electrons that have flowed through? Work on that if you have an idea how to proceed, or just take...
Posted by Matt Springer at 10:00 AM • 40 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 14, 2009
Supposedly there's no such thing as bad publicity, and indeed just about every large organization from business to charity spends tremendous amount of time and money trying to get noticed by the public. You'd think therefore that it would be...
Posted by Matt Springer at 12:55 PM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 12, 2009
Category: Sunday Function
All right, here's a fun one. It usually comes as part of a story. The story as told is mostly true, though a few details have been a little fudged by the winds of history. It goes like this: when...
Posted by Matt Springer at 12:34 AM • 14 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
