Links for 2010-10-21

"All of these arguments place the higher education system at the center of the universe worth examining. Holding up a magnifying glass to the industry can indeed yield a wealth of detailed information, but without context that information is partial, and it can be quite misleading. The college-centric view of the world all too often lends itself to an easy politicization of complex issues. Before we jump on the apocalyptic bandwagon, there is mileage in placing the higher education industry firmly within the industrial structure of the American economy and within the economic history of the past century.

In our book, titled Why Does College Cost So Much?, we attempt to supply this context. Instead of using a magnifying glass, we take an aerial view of the industry. In the view from above, the most important drivers of college cost are the technological forces that have reshaped the entire American economy."

"This large installation consists of a 22 meter long 'river' of water running through a tunnel lined with thousands of silver balloons (photomultiplier tubes). Members of the public embark on a boat, pulled through the tunnel on a submerged track using a pulley system, with sound and lighting effects, and with an expert particle physicist navigator as a guide. On the journey they learn of neutrinos, their role in the Universe and how scientists detect them. All crew members must first don white Tyvek suits, wellies and hard hats or else face the wrath of Nelly the security chief, at the entrance of the tunnel. This installation is designed to deliver physically thrilling experiences; emerging the audience on a journey through the physics of the Universe."

"So, the question is: can I show one mole of something that you could also see the individual pieces? Honestly, I don't know. But gosh-darn it, I am going to try.

How about a mole of salt grains? I can see an individual salt grain. How big would a mole be? The problem is that even a 1/4th of a teaspoon of salt has more grains than I would like to count. I don't have an 8th grader handy to count 1,000 grains. The next best thing is to cheat. I am good at cheating."

"You're taking your morning shower and a thought occurs to you. "In classical electrodynamics, an accelerating charge radiates. In general relativity, acceleration is equivalent to a gravitational field. Therefore a stationary charge should radiate simply by virtue of being in a gravitational field. What's up with that?"

You wonder about what the radiated power would be for a given gravitational field. You figure maybe you could use the Larmor formula with the Stefan-Boltzmann law to estimate the equivalent thermal radiation but you don't remember either one of those equations exactly and you're pretty sure you'd have to finagle some spatial factors anyway (the Stefan-Boltzmann law has a factor of surface area).

One alternative is to try to construct a quantum field theory in curved spacetime, but this is ludicrously tough even if you're not in the shower without pen and paper. But we might be able to just juggle some constants around and get an estimate."