How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: Obsessive Update

i-1e8ca3d6f1057cdc4f9532702467bc29-sm_cover_draft_atom.jpgNot a whole lot new, but it's been a few days. Also, it's a challenge to remain ambulatory at the moment, thanks to this cursed cold, so I'm not really prepared to turn out Significant Blogging.

-- This morning's vanity search (why yes, I am searching for "How to Teach Physics to Your Dog" on a daily basis. Aren't you?) turned up this Current Geek podcast, which talks about the book. They haven't read it yet, but picked up the BoingBoing mention, and are enthusiastic about the idea. They pretty well nail the thinking behind the book.

-- The vanity search also turned up this discussion of my Physics World article. OK, fine, it's not about the book, but it's still about me, so that counts...

-- The program for the March Meeting went up this week, including my invited talk on Lasers in the Undergraduate Laboratory: Precision Measurement for the Masses:

Lasers are essential components of a huge range of modern ultra-precise measurements, from LIGO to laser-cooled atomic clocks to femtosecond frequency comb sources. I will describe some experiments at the undergraduate level that, while they do not match the astonishing precision of these measurements, introduce students to the use of lasers as tools for precision measurement.

If you're going to be in Portland for the meeting, mark your schedule. If you balk at paying a few hundred dollars to register for the conference, I'm looking into the possibility of doing something book-related in Portland that week.

-- Obligatory sales rank tracking update: it crept back over 10,000 last night, sigh. The early reports of meaningful numbers-- sales and bookstore orders-- are pretty good, though, and that's what really matters. Still, if you are or know anyone connected with the Colbert Report, I wouldn't mind the bump...

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