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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.
You've read the blog, now try the book: How to Teach Physics to Your Dog will be published December 22nd by Scribner.
"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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Experiment:
Category: Quantum Computing
Today's Quantum Optics lecture is about quantum computing experiments, and how different types of systems stack up. Quantum computing, as you probably know if you're reading this blog, is based on building a computer whose "bits" can not only take...
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Posted by Chad Orzel at 8:50 AM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Physics
One of my pet peeves about physics as perceived by the public and presented in the media is the way that everyone assumes that all physicists are theoretical particle physicists. Matt Springer points out another example of this, in this...
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Posted by Chad Orzel at 11:31 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Physics
I gave a guest lecture this morning in a colleague's sophomore seminar class about time. She's having them look at time from a variety of perspectives, and they just finished reading Longitude, so she asked me to talk about the...
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Posted by Chad Orzel at 11:35 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Physics
The sneaky folks at the Nobel Foundation have thrown a spanner in the works when it comes to the Physics prize. All the speculation has surrounded exotic quantum effects and theoretical esoterica, and they turn around and give it to...
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Posted by Chad Orzel at 8:23 AM • 16 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Physics
Buried in the weekend links dump at the arxiv blog was Scalable ion traps for quantum information processing: We report on the design, fabrication, and preliminary testing of a 150 zone array built in a `surface-electrode' geometry microfabricated on a...
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Posted by Chad Orzel at 9:53 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Academia
What sorts of things should faculty do to support their former Ph.D. students?
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Posted by Chad Orzel at 11:22 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Physics
NPR last week had a story about the changing kilogram: More than a century ago, a small metal cylinder was forged in London and sent to a leafy suburb of Paris. The cylinder was about the size of a salt...
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Posted by Chad Orzel at 10:56 AM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: History of Science
Yesterday's historical physics poll was about precision measurements. Who were those people, and why are they worth knowing about?...
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Posted by Chad Orzel at 10:55 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: History of Science
Yesterday, I posted a silly poll about optical physicists. Who are those people, and why should you care about them? In inverse order of popularity:...
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Posted by Chad Orzel at 10:20 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Physics
The Corporate Masters have launched a "featured blogger" program, asking individual ScienceBloggers to comment on news articles from the main site, and publishing the responses with the magazine piece. I just did one on new quantum experiments, which was posted...
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Posted by Chad Orzel at 11:04 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks