Steinn Sigurðsson
Professor of Astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University. Science Editor at Astrophysical Journal. Icelandic. Herder of Cats.
catdynamics
Posts by this author
May 21, 2007
Last year Sean wrote a marvelous short on Boltzmann's Brains
A Boltzmann Brain is a self-aware entity that spontaneously appears from a low probability statistical fluctuation to a low entropy state.
A very low probability fluctuation.
We're talking something like a potted plant appearing…
May 20, 2007
Do not invite me to observatories - I have the Pauli effect
The Green Bank Telescope is very pretty.
But I'm not going to get to see it move...
seems it just broke.
Just a little bit. I'm sure they can fix it soon...
Could be worse, at least the mountain is not on fire.
May 17, 2007
Friday flies forth
And we ask the Mighty iPod One: oh, mighty iPod One, can we really achieve extremely high contrast optical astronomical imaging through negative refraction index superlenses?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Móðir - Ego
The Crossing: Lullaby
The Crown: The…
May 17, 2007
I was shown this today, and it totally rocks.
ADS archives have gone back, just a wee bit...
The Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System, ADS, is one of the most amazingly useful and comprehensive scientific data bases on the planet.
It covers all the major astronomical journals, including…
May 16, 2007
score
Criminal Minds on CBS had its season finale.
Overdramatic
But, in the penultimate scene the "Greg" lead character confronts his boss, a senior FBI officer and profiles her to make his case for keeping her job.
Top of the pile in the FBI boss's office is SEED Magazine.
The March '07 "TRUTH"…
May 16, 2007
some principles must hold for persistence of civic society
and sometimes we link because it is important to do so
May 16, 2007
The amazing Swiss team (Gillon et al A&A L in press) have another amazing planet pick for us...
...as pointed out to me by Dunkleosteus in the comments.
Greg at systemic has the full story
This is a good one, with all the ingredients - and the competition aspect also.
Teaches us to a) read…
May 16, 2007
Ringlike dark matter paper is out.
But Chad explains the essence of the issue much better
May 16, 2007
The Texas HET group has discovered a couple of very interesting new planets which have not received the attention they deserve, yet.
HD155358 is a 0.9 solar mass G0 main sequence star, it is about 130 light years away, it is about 10 billion years old, and it is now known to have two planets.
It is…
May 15, 2007
A correspondent points me to an interesting point made on rateyourstudents.blogspot.com
The issue is the "students as customers" but with some interesting points...
The argument is that each particular student expects individual service, whereas the university as an institution really deals with…
May 15, 2007
Virginia Trimble's legendary annual survey of hot research in astrophysics is out
References are kinda annoying this year, first author only and no titles!
Ah well, I see at least one of my papers in there...
Always a fun read.
May 15, 2007
Unconfirmed report on CommonDreams that the White House wanted to put three carriers in the Persian Gulf in early April by having the Nimitz get there early.
Supposedly Admiral Fallon refused to do this, which is curious and problematic in itself.
On the one hand putting three carriers in the gulf…
May 15, 2007
Sitting in a hotel room, reading Generation Rx by Greg Critser, it is very disconcerting to see out of the corner of your eye the topic of the book - the ad for the "purple pill", the generic pretty people running through the field, and the very strange two bathtubs-on-a-cliff ad...
ok, so I know…
May 14, 2007
Fascinating post on Scott's shtetl-optimized on logical inference, religion and the parsimony of evolutionary optimised reasoning
Read the whole thing.
There is always a worry that scientific rationalism is a darwinian dead-end, in that it is suboptimal for reproductive fitness, and Scott touches…
May 13, 2007
So I'm catching up on stuff.
And I come across a short in Science (314, 1231 24 Nov 2006) on the resignation of the head of the US census bureay and his deputy.
Ok, interesting. It comes after a new Commerce Secretary is appointed. BFD.
Well, the Census Bureau does the census - coming up in 2010…
May 13, 2007
The debate over the tenure process that Rob kicked up at Galactic Interactions continues with Chad worrying about senior academic complacence and the Incoherent Ponderer pondering some more
the latter makes a good point - the big hurdle is moving from postdoc to tenure track, that is anecdotally…
May 12, 2007
experimental results show strong negative refraction in the optical
this could be very useful for astronomical imaging
Lezec et al report n ~ -5 negative refraction synthetic material that works in the optical (~ 500 nm) over a respectable bandwidth (~ 50 nm) (website and link here).
Negative…
May 11, 2007
I hear second hand rumours about the Beyond Einstein NRC review committee status
I am reliably informed, that the committee did reach their conclusions, probably very shortly after the Chicago townhall meeting, and that they have a definite ranking. The formal report is being written.
They report…
May 11, 2007
It is windy friday and we ask the Mighty iPod One, in the spirit of the soon to be news: a ring of dark matter? Really?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: Strax í Dag - Stuðmenn
The Crossing: Wonderland - XTC
The Crown: Splunkunýtt Lag - Stuðmenn
The Root: Death or Glory - Clash
The…
May 11, 2007
For Mother's Day: "Betty Friedan Honored With Second-Class Postage Stamp"
Onion Special Issue
(h/t FSP)
One of these funny but makes you cry issues.
May 10, 2007
The Angry Physicist makes a good spot
Press conference next week on a "ring of dark matter" discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope, Advanced Camera for Surveys (RIP).
This is almost certainly this result reported at the AAS
The authors took strong and weak lensing data from a moderate redshift…
May 10, 2007
25 years ago I flew to the UK, after having been completely out of touch with all media for a week, and found the country was at war.
This was particularly awkward because traveling in our group was a young Argentinian woman, with a broken leg, who didn't know either.
Her family were prominent…
May 9, 2007
Four Dee
Fourty
Two.
If you read any more I will sue.
4D 42 0B 61 97 8F B5 07 D4 66 EE 63 73 AA B0 85
That number is mine.
Freedom to Tinker generated it, and deeded it to me
It is my very own, tip-top super secret decryption code to a very valuable and copyrighted text.
You may not know it, read…
May 9, 2007
Rob at Galactic Interactions has existential issues
Sean has some thoughts on the issue
It is an interesting topic, but one that is very hard to comment on.
The criteria for tenure vary somewhat between different universities, but at the "R1" level (annoying but useful bio concept that) the broad…
May 9, 2007
Most universities have both office specific keys and more general "master keys", I have observed a curious trend among those keys.
The "F" keys - those that open only the inner sanctum of faculty offices, closed seminar rooms and coffee supply cupboards - as opposed to the more general building…
May 9, 2007
The EU and US signed an "open skies" agreement earlier this week.
The primary purpose of the agreement is to relax landing right restrictions and open internal flights to international competition, but I hear anecdotally that there will be an added benefit.
Currently, in the US, federal workers…
May 4, 2007
Sunny, sunny friday at home!
So, we cheerfully skip to The Mighty iPod One and ask blithely:
oh, Mighty iPod, will we be seeing some interestingly habitable planets in the zone soon?
Whoosh goes the randomizer.
Whoosh.
The Covering: When Love Comes to Town - U2
The Crossing: If I didn't Lover You…
May 3, 2007
Corot has first discovery announcement
Corot Exo1b - 1.3 Jupiter masses, radius of 1.5-1.8 Jupiter radiii around G dwardf with 1.5 day orbital period.
So another short period, bloated Jupiter. Star is 500 pc away, so I'm guessing roughly 12th magnitude.
Specs at extrasolar encyclopedia
The big…