The Witten Thing
Category: String Theory
Should Ed Witten have a Nobel Prize? We can settle this with a totally scientific poll.
Posted by Chad Orzel at 9:29 AM • 24 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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.
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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String Theory:
...For Some Definition of Physical Reality
Category: String Theory
There's a press release dated a week or two ago from Leiden University headlined "Physical reality of string theory demonstrated," in an apparent bid to make Peter Woit's head explode. The release itself is really pretty awful, with poorly explained...
Posted by Chad Orzel at 7:58 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Physics Can Fix This
Category: Academia
How physics provides the key to solving the world financial crisis.
Posted by Chad Orzel at 10:58 AM • 18 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Martin Rees Against Fundamentalism
Category: Physics
There's a really good article from Martin Rees in the latest issue of Seed, on the scientific challenges that won't be affected by the LHC: The LHC hasn't yet provided its first results, the much-anticipated answers to questions we've been...
Posted by Chad Orzel at 12:01 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Journalists Are Amplifiers
Category: Physics
A few days ago, Bee put up a post titled Do We Need Science Journalists?, linking back to Bora's enormous manifesto from the first bit of the Horgan-Johnson bloggingheads kerfuffle. My first reaction was "Oh, God, not again..." but her...
Posted by Chad Orzel at 10:32 AM • 24 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Parallel Universes and Morality
Category: Television
The claim that an infinite universe, parallel universes, or the Many-World Interpretation of quantum theory have something to say about ethics is not quite as stupid as the "Atheism is evil because without God there is no morality" argument. It comes pretty close, though.
Posted by Chad Orzel at 10:46 AM • 34 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Nothing But Uncertainty
Category: Experiment
A new search for deviations from Newtonian gravity measures nothing to a better precision than ever before. And you thought climate science had a problem with uncertainty...
Posted by Chad Orzel at 9:25 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Strings and Philately
Category: String Theory
Over at Evolving Thoughts, John Wilkins pokes string theorists: Ernst Rutherford, the "father" of nuclear physics, once airily declared "In science there is only physics. All the rest is stamp collecting". By this he meant that the theory of physics...
Posted by Chad Orzel at 7:15 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Lemonade from the Landscape
Category: String Theory
There's a piece by Michael Dine in Physics Today this month with the ambitious title "String theory in the era of the Large Hadron Collider, thus combining two of my very favorite topics... I was going to give it a...
Posted by Chad Orzel at 9:10 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Turtles and Strings: Where Does Science Stop?
Category: String Theory
The infamous Davies op-ed has been collected together with some responses at edge.org, and one of the responses is by Sean Carroll, who reproduces his response at Cosmic Variance. Sean's a smart guy, and I basically agree with his argument,...
Posted by Chad Orzel at 10:16 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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