Now on ScienceBlogs: Oldest Human-Made Object in Space

ScienceBlogs Book Club: Inside the Outbreaks

Uncertain Principles

Thoughts on physics, politics, and pop culture, by a physics professor at a small liberal arts college, plus occasional conversations with his dog.

Search

Profile

sidebar_relativity_cover.jpg

sm_cover_draft_atom.jpgYou've read the blog, now try the books! How to Teach Physics to Your Dog is published by Scribner, and available wherever books are sold. How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog is published by Basic Books and will be available 2/28/2012, as foretold by the Maya.

"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.

Chad Orzel "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, the Queen of Niskayuna Emmy is a German Shepherd mix, and the Queen of Niskayuna. She likes treats, walks, chasing bunnies, and quantum physics.

Research Blogging Awards 2010 Winner!

Donors Choose challenge link

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Greatest Hits

Chateau Steelypips

Blogroll

Scientists

Academics

Interesting People

Books

Punditry

Categories

Archives

« Thursday Baby Blogging 121009 | Main | Worst. Course Evaluations. EVER. »

Links for 2009-12-11

Category: Links Dump
Posted on: December 11, 2009 8:07 AM, by Chad Orzel

  • Blu-ray Review: "Living Fireplace Volume 2" | Popdose
    "Yes, I've written a review of a Blu-ray disc that features little more than a burning fireplace. I know it's a little weird. Here's something even weirder: Everyone has their favorite television holiday special, right? Mine is the Yule Log."
    (tags: review television video holiday silly popdose blogs)
  • Why was Snape such a Bad Teacher?!
    "Snape, as a student, apparently used the same textbook that he is teaching with now. When he was a student, he figured out all sorts of small improvements to make better potions more easily. He KNOWS how to do this. He figured it out already. And yet he doesn't teach what he learned. Harry, using Snape's original copy with his notes, outperforms his peers and has success with potions like he never had before. As far as I can tell, potion-making can be taught like cooking, and having the right recipe matters."
    (tags: education blogs books movies silly)
  • First known binary star is discovered to be a triplet, quadruplet, quintuplet, sextuplet system | International Space Fellowship
    "Now, an astronomer at the University of Rochester and his colleagues have made the surprise discovery that Alcor is also actually two stars, and is apparently gravitationally bound to the Mizar system, making the whole group a sextuplet. This would make the Mizar-Alcor sextuplet the second-nearest such system known. The discovery is especially surprising because Alcor is one of the most studied stars in the sky."
    (tags: astronomy science news optics)
  • jonsinger: An RGB "white light" dye laser
    "I have a cold, and I have very little energy, but I can only sit around blowing my nose for so long, after which I get kinda stir-crazy. Hmmm, there's this nitrogen laser on the bench; I wonder if I can make RGB "white" laser light from one single cuvette of dye..."
    (tags: science optics lasers blogs experiment chemistry physics atoms molecules)
  • Swans on Tea » Conjugate This!
    ""We all know what happens when you split an infinitive," remarked Prof. John Wurterschmidt, "but we're only familiar with the results at pedestrian energies. Until now, nobody has investigated what happens when you [collide words] at hundreds of MeV. Is the language relativistic? That is, we need to be finding out if words take on new meanings when they are traveling at a significant fraction of the speed of light. And, of course, the ultimate goal of discovering if there is an inherent structure to language, beyond what we give it. We really need this. A whole lot more than yet another analysis of Wuthering Heights.""
    (tags: science language humanities academia physics particles blogs swans-on-tea silly)
Share on Facebook
Share on StumbleUpon
Share on Facebook

TrackBacks

TrackBack URL for this entry: http://scienceblogs.com/mt/pings/126931

Comments

1

So how do the four stars in Mizar orbit each other? Is it two groups of two?

Posted by: Katharine | December 11, 2009 8:34 AM

2

Snape's teaching can be explained if textbooks have to be passed by the Ministry of Magic, or some (conservative in practice) equivalent of a Board of Education, and if Snape enjoyed hoarding to himself the "secret knowledge" of better potion making---a sort of secret superiority over, initially, his more popular schoolmates, and later applied more generally to the wizarding community.

Posted by: cicely | December 11, 2009 2:34 PM

Post a Comment

(Email is required for authentication purposes only. On some blogs, comments are moderated for spam, so your comment may not appear immediately.)





ScienceBlogs

Search ScienceBlogs:

Go to:

Advertisement

The Latest Readers' Picks

  1. 1Planning for Irene : Casaubon's Book
  2. 2'Not responding well to vaccines'-- Separated by a common language : erv
  3. 3Shrimp on treadmills, laundry-folding robots, and the problem of ridiculing research : The Pump Handle
  4. 4"Excuse me, there's some food in my bugs!" : Greg Laden's Blog
  5. 5No place to sit down : Greg Laden's Blog
Follow ScienceBlogs on Twitter

The Blog Index | About ScienceBlogs | Advertise with ScienceBlogs | Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Code of Conduct | Contact Us

© 2006-2011 ScienceBlogs LLC. ScienceBlogs is a registered trademark of ScienceBlogs LLC. All rights reserved.