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"There's a monster at the end of this book. And if the authors succeed at what they've set out to do, that monster is you. That's part of why one should only read these books slowly, in small, weekly doses, while pausing to scream at or mock every page."
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"After a month of cramming for finals and living off raw ramen noodles, there's nothing more appealing to a college student at the end of May than a long summer doing nothing, punctuated, if you're feeling really ambitious, by an occasional camping trip or jaunt to the beach.Unless you're Laurie Stephey or Brad Dinardo. In that case you might feel more up to nine weeks of performing cutting-edge scientific research."
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"Hop on Air France, Lance Catch swine flu, Apu Reset her iPhone, Jerome (There’s an App for that) Get a new Prius, Gus You won’t need to refuel much Send a rude tweet, Abideep Just get yourself free"
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Same question as the other paper, this one says "Maybe."
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Short version: Probably not.
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And now, Emmy wants to go to Texas...
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"The needlepoint samplers are all wrong. It turns out it isn't love that "makes a house a home," it's the deed to the land the house sits on. So, OK then, let's make these houses homes. Let's convert these cars into homes by converting all of these feudal mobile home "communities" and trailer parks into resident-owned communities -- into neighborhoods with houses that are homes, places where homeowners don't have to pay rent on or worry about eviction from the land on which their house sits. When I say "let's" I mean "us" as in "We the people." As in the federal government. With taxpayer dollars."
Uncertain Principles
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"Uncertain Principles" features the miscellaneous ramblings of a physicist at a small liberal arts college. Physics, politics, pop culture, and occasional conversations with his dog.
"Prof. Orzel gives the impression of an everyday guy who just happens to have a vast but hidden knowledge of physics." (anonymous student evaluation comment)
Emmy is a German Shepherd mix, and the Queen of Niskayuna. She likes treats, walks, chasing bunnies, and quantum physics.
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« Belated Baby Blogging 071709 | Main | links for 2009-07-19 »
links for 2009-07-18
Category: Links Dump
Posted on: July 18, 2009 5:00 AM, by Chad Orzel
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Comments
The two dark matter papers you link are, in fact, asking completely different questions. Bergström et al are looking at the spectrum of high-energy positrons and electrons (in the range of 100s of GeV), where there seem to be more positrons than expected. This might be due to dark matter annihilating or decaying (with a mass scale of ~ 1 TeV), or could be from pulsars or some other standard astrophysical way of producing cosmic rays that just hasn't been understood well enough yet. In any case, these high-energy positrons are produced somewhere relatively nearby and are being detected directly in satellite and balloon experiments.
Lingenfelter et al, on the other hand, are interested in the bright 511 keV radiation coming from the center of the galaxy (as seen by the INTEGRAL experiment). Because it's 511 keV, the natural assumption is that it's from slow-moving electrons and positrons annihilating to two photons. So while positrons are involved, they are in a completely different energy range than the ones being studied in the other paper. Dark matter explanations of this might involve light (MeV-ish) dark matter, or heavier dark matter with an excited state that is split from the ground state by a similar small energy.
Both are interesting, but they're far from being the same question....
Posted by: onymous | July 18, 2009 12:14 PM