drorzel

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Chad Orzel

Chad Orzel is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Union College in Schenectady, NY. He blogs about physics, life in academia, ephemeral pop culture, and anything else that catches his fancy.

Posts by this author

November 15, 2015
Another day when I only took a couple of pictures, on the morning dog walk. I noticed that one of the now leafless trees on the route looked interestingly creepy, so I took a couple shots of that. I didn't notice that the mode selector on the camera had gotten bumped to full manual, though, which…
November 14, 2015
This is a pure document-my-day shot, not one of my random attempts at artsy effects. One of The Pip's birthday presents was a big vinyl wall decal from Chic Walls, a gift from Aunt Erin in California. These are a little complicated to install, and SteelyKid being sick messed up the whole week, but…
November 12, 2015
Another day with a staged-for-talk-prep photo: My desk, with social media on both computers. I needed a picture of social-media apps on computer screens for an upcoming talk, so I took one. After first tweeting a cute-kid photo: Cute-kid photo because I want to take a picture of Twitter to use…
November 11, 2015
It's a grey, dismal, rainy day here at Chateau Steelypips, and I'm a little groggy from cold medication. Which means it's not a great writing day, but it is a good day to stay inside and do a little SCIENCE! for the photo of the day. thus, this: Some toys and the cable box in our basement, shot at…
November 11, 2015
Spent all day yesterday with SteelyKid, who, while she was officially medically diagnosed as suffering from strep throat, was not in any conventional sense "sick." We built Lego sets, watched tv, went shopping, played with an RC helicopter, tried and failed to make a physics video, and generally…
November 10, 2015
Over in Twitter-land, Rhett Allain drew my attention to this "Sports Science" clip from ESPN, about a wild 4th-and-25 play in the Arkansas-Ole Miss game. This is nominally because I've been writing about big hits and bouncing balls over at Forbes, but really, I think Rhett's just working on a "…
November 10, 2015
Another delayed photo-of-the-day, because SteelyKid was sent home with strep throat yesterday. She complained that her throat hurt any time we asked her to eat anything other than ice cream, but other than that was basically unaffected. Which is sort of the most irritating sick-kid scenario…
November 9, 2015
Another couple of weeks of physics-y posts over at Forbes: -- Why Scientists Should Study Art And Literature: My big defense of "the humanities," explaining why those subjects are worth studying even if you plan to go into a STEM field instead. I'm very happy with how this came out. -- Baseball…
November 8, 2015
The day was dominated by the previously mentioned birthday party for The Pip, so it only makes sense to have the photo of the day be an action shot from said party: The Pip shaking a parachute with balls on it at his birthday party. This is from the games portion of the party, which included…
November 8, 2015
The Pip's birthday was yesterday, but we're having his birthday party today, because that's when the indoor playground was available. He had two requests for his birthday: that we have a party at Tumbling Tykes, and that one friend in particular be invited. So, well, we're having his party at…
November 7, 2015
Four years ago today, The Pip was born. That's hard to believe, in both directions at different times. There are days when it seems like just yesterday that he was a tiny helpless thing, and other days when he seems to have been a hyper Little Dude for aeons. I took a bunch of pictures of him today…
November 7, 2015
I spent most of Friday in a bit of a fog, thanks to a cold bug I picked up from The Pip. As a result, the only thing I took photos of yesterday was this: A piece of bread in the toaster at Chateau Steelypips. This wasn't some weird pseudoephedrine-fueled delusion-- I actually had a professional…
November 6, 2015
I've known this for a while now, but they just announced it officially: I'll be speaking at TEDxAlbany this year, on "The Exotic Physics of an Ordinary Morning": You might think that the bizarre predictions of quantum mechanics and relativity– particles that are also waves, cats that are both…
November 6, 2015
I love a lot of things about our neighborhood, which is all pleasant tree-lined streets and stuff, but it's not a great place for taking pictures of sunset-- I pretty much need to get in the car to get to a place with a clear view of the western horizon. This knocks out a big category of imitation-…
November 5, 2015
Two positions of possible interest to academic job seekers: -- First, we're hiring again in the Union college Department of Physics and Astronomy: We invite applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor position starting in September 2016, with a preference for an experimental physicist…
November 5, 2015
A little while back, I used a photo of SteelyKid's toy Newton's cradle as the photo of the day, with a bonus video: I mentioned that I was going to do some analysis of this at some point, but didn't have time right then. I had a bit of time to poke at this yesterday, though, so here's some physics…
November 4, 2015
SteelyKid's Elite Team taekwondo practice on Tuesday night was a "game night" because they had a belt test last week. The kids opted to play capture-the-flag against the parents, which ended up a tie (the adults won the first two games, the kids the second two), but the adult victories came at a…
November 4, 2015
Another delayed photo-of-the-day, another photobombing: Evil squirrel against a colorful sunrise. I think this pretty much speaks for itself: I was getting a photo of the colorful sunrise, and an evil squirrel ran across the power line. Which was a clear and obvious photo of the day.
November 4, 2015
ScienceBlogs had some back-end Issues for a few days, which delayed the photo-a-day project. This one's from two days ago, when I was taking a picture of the bare branches of a tree next door because I liked the way they looked against the sky. I ended up with a high-altitude photobomb, though:…
November 1, 2015
Another busy day, so you get another kind of lazy shot. But, hey, everybody wants to know how the kids did trick-or-treating, right? So here's The Pip's share of the Halloween haul: The Pip's Halloween candy. I weighed both his plastic pumpkin full of candy and the Tupperware container that…
November 1, 2015
The hot SF release of the fall is Ann Leckie's Ancillary Mercy, concluding the Imperial Radch trilogy. The first of these, Ancillary Justice won a Hugo two years ago, and the second, Ancillary Sword should've won this past year, because I really didn't like the Three-Body Problem. The release of…
October 31, 2015
I took some shots of nature stuff on this morning's dog walk, and a few good action shots at the last soccer game of the season. But honestly, the only thing anybody wants to see today is Halloween costumes, so here are the kids: The Pip as Batman, SteelyKid as a ninja. Cleverly, they both…
October 30, 2015
This is basically the shot I was trying to get yesterday when I ended up settling for an evil squirrel: a leaf in mid-fall. Falling leaf in late October. This is, of course, damnably difficult to get, as it's impossible to guess when a specific leaf will drop, and if you throw them up into the…
October 30, 2015
I've been slacking in my obligation to use this blog for self-promotion, but every now and then I remember, so here are two recent things where I was interviewed by other people: -- I spoke on the phone to a reporter from Popular Mechanics who was writing a story about "radionics" and "wishing…
October 29, 2015
You might look at this and say "Oh, what a cute little squirrel..." A demon from another dimension, at least according to Emmy. But Emmy will be very happy to explain, loudly and at length, that this is, in fact, a demonic alien menace, an existential threat to the safety of our house and home.…
October 29, 2015
I got off on a bit of a rant the other day about bad defenses of "the humanities," but there's a bright side. It finally got me to write my own, over at Forbes, which is basically the last piece of a tetralogy of advice for students: -- Why small colleges are a great place for students majoring in…
October 29, 2015
I totally spaced on posting this yesterday, because I ended up having to take SteelyKid to the doctor, which blew a gigantic hole in my day. (She's fine.) But this is a shot of sunrise yesterday morning: Sunrise on October 28. This was a very strange sunrise because this is pretty much the only…
October 27, 2015
I did take some DSLR photos today, but the photo of the day is a cell-phone shot from the final soccer practice of the fall for SteelyKid's second-grade team. The last rec soccer practice for the fall 2015 season. SteelyKid is not, in fact, in this photo; she had a belt test for the Elite Team…
October 27, 2015
Somebody in my social media feeds passed along a link to this interview with Berkeley professor Daniel Boyarin about "the humanities," at NPR's science-y blog. This is, of course, relevant to my interests, but sadly, but while it's a short piece, it contains a lot to hate. For one thing, after the…
October 27, 2015
I was out of town last week, and doing talk prep leading up to that, so it's been a little while since my last collection of Forbes links. Here's the latest from over there: -- Football Physics: The Forces Behind Those Big Hits: A look at force, momentum, and acceleration in tackling. -- The…