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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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December 31, 2009
Around ScienceBlogs recently there's been some discussion about the following eyebrow-raising Toys-R-Us advertisement: The ad has caused rumblings of discontent because it's pretty obvious the pink microscope and telescope are supposed to be "girl" editions, and in both cases the...
Posted by Matt Springer at 10:30 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 30, 2009
Still working my way through Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver, and I'm now about half way through it (and thus about 1/6 of the way through the whole Baroque Cycle). The book is about the intrigues and adventures of Daniel Waterhouse and...
Posted by Matt Springer at 9:00 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 29, 2009
Ok, back from Christmas hiatus which I, uh, forgot to announce. But I am pleased that I survived a full 96+ hours with exactly zero internet access. Didn't even miss it. Much. Over that break, I happened to be in...
Posted by Matt Springer at 9:00 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 23, 2009
In the study of probability there's a concept called expected value. If you're measuring some random process, the expected value is the average over a very large number of trials. For instance, if you roll one dice you can expect...
Posted by Matt Springer at 2:50 PM • 23 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 21, 2009
Category: Sunday Function
Before her career took an unfortunate wrong turn, a young and talented Lindsay Lohan gave us a charming and popular comedy called Mean Girls. Time has been good to the careers of some of the others involved, Tiny Fey and...
Posted by Matt Springer at 3:20 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 18, 2009
Some of you may have heard in the news recently about a possible detection of the particles that may make up dark matter: Detectors in the mine, part of the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search experiment, were tripped recently by what...
Posted by Matt Springer at 5:09 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 17, 2009
I've finally buckled down and started reading Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. Though the author is probably my favorite living fiction writer, the three-volume, ~3000 page monstrosity is just something that's hard for a busy grad student to tackle. I'm only...
Posted by Matt Springer at 2:47 PM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 16, 2009
This is a painting called The Supper at Emmaus. Its subject is the story in the 24th chapter of Luke's gospel, and the story of the painting is itself quite a tale. It was discovered from obscurity in 1937 by...
Posted by Matt Springer at 10:00 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 9, 2009
You probably haven't been able to avoid seeing the televised bombs AT&T and Verizon have been throwing at each other over the maps of their coverage. Both sets of commercials (to differing degrees) fail to make it especially clear just...
Posted by Matt Springer at 6:46 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
December 7, 2009
Category: Sunday Function
Square roots made simple.
Posted by Matt Springer at 12:27 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
