drorzel | April 27, 2010
News: Science for Non-Scientists - Inside Higher Ed
"Next January, Bard's science and math faculty - along with postdoctoral students and faculty from other institutions -- will try to change all that with the Citizen Science Program, three weeks of science learning modeled on the success of Language and Thinking. Also required of all 500 of the college's freshmen, and ungraded, Botstein hopes it will become similarly entrenched as a landmark of students' first year at Bard.
"We'll give young people in their first year of college a real understanding of what science does, what it's about,"…
drorzel | April 26, 2010As of 1:45 Monday, 217 people have cast votes in the Laser Smackdown poll. That's not bad, but it's currently being handily beaten by the 271 people who have voted for a favorite system of units.
The nice thing about using actual poll services for this sort of thing, though, is that I can re-post the poll to boost signal a little. So, here it is again, a list of the twelve most amazing laser applications suggested by my wise and worldly readers, with links to short explanations of the pros and cons of each:
Which of the following is the most amazing application of a laser?Market Research…
drorzel | April 26, 2010I'm currently enjoying the high, thin whistle of an impending deadline, so here are a couple of poll questions about infuriating behaviors to pass the time. The first is about people:
Which of these is more infuriating to read/watch/hear?online surveys
The second about presentations:
Which of these talks is more infuriating to listen to?Market Research
My answers to these are probably a big part of why I sometimes have trouble with the Internet and the people on it. I'm interested to know what other people think, though. And while the polls themselves are binary choices, feel free to…
drorzel | April 26, 2010
Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 163601 (2010): Direct Observation of Coherent Population Trapping in a Superconducting Artificial Atom
"The phenomenon of coherent population trapping (CPT) of an atom (or solid state "artificial atom"), and the associated effect of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), are clear demonstrations of quantum interference due to coherence in multilevel quantum systems. We report observation of CPT in a superconducting phase qubit by simultaneously driving two coherent transitions in a Î-type configuration, utilizing the three lowest lying levels of a local…
drorzel | April 25, 2010Jim Butcher's Changes, the 12th Dresden Files novel, came out not too long ago, and there's been a bunch of discussion of it in various places on the Internet. I seem to have a slightly less positive take on the book than a lot of other people, so I figured I'd put up a slightly grumpy post about it, to get it out of my system.
There are good things about the book, to be sure-- the ending is very eventful, to say the least, and fires a lot of the guns that have begun cluttering up the mantel. Butcher very emphatically justifies the title, ensuring that nothing will be the same after this…
drorzel | April 25, 2010
One-third of Americans may be obese, but we're not too fat to fight. - By Daniel Engber - Slate Magazine
"Yet fat soldiers are sometimes given the boot for reasons that have nothing to do with their abilities in the field. According to military guidelines, even someone who's fit as a fiddle can be drummed out of camp for having the wrong body dimensions. Consider that a young man who's 6 feet tall must weigh less than 195 pounds, or have a body fat percentage below 26, in order to serve in the Army. [...] That's true even if he excels on the U.S. Army's Physical Fitness Test. [...] When it…
drorzel | April 24, 2010
slacktivist: Establishment
"Here is what the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says about religion:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ..."
Sometimes a comma is just a comma and not a vast chasm separating two competing and incompatible ideas. The two clauses there do not conflict. At all. They are logically necessary counterparts of one another. Congress may not make any law establishing religion and Congress may not prohibit the free exercise of religion. Congress may not make any law establishing…
drorzel | April 23, 2010In 1960, the first working laser was demonstrated, and promptly dubbed "a solution looking for a problem." In the ensuing fifty years, lasers have found lots of problems to solve, but there has been no consensus about which of the many amazing applications of lasers is the most amazing.
Now, in 2010, as we celebrate the anniversary of the laser, we finally have the technology to definitively answer the question: radio-button polls on the Internet!
Which of the following is the most amazing application of a laser?Market Research
Each of the choices above links to a post I wrote here giving…
drorzel | April 23, 2010
Don't ignore the Tea Party's toxic take on history. - By Ron Rosenbaum - Slate Magazine
"And it suddenly occurred to me that Tea Partiers really should read this pamphlet, because it would teach them something about what "tyranny" is actually like. It would teach them something about what "communism" was really like. It would make them ashamed of themselves for whining about a health care bill turning America into a tyranny, for slandering liberals as communists who want to impose tyranny on them. It might snap them out of the intoxicated hysteria they whip themselves into. "
(tags: history…
drorzel | April 22, 2010Most weeks, I try to find some natural-looking way to get SteelyKid and Appa in the picture together. Sometimes, though, there's just no way to get it done, and we have to resort to Kate holding Appa near her:
She's hugging her jacket because it got kind of cold this afternoon, but she's in a phase where she refuses to put her jacket on, and also refuses to go inside. Life's tough with a willful toddler.
To compensate for the lack of elegance in this week's Appa picture, here are two much better shots taken by Matt Milless of Mahi Matt Photo at last night's charity basketball game. First, a…
drorzel | April 22, 2010I wanted to test whether I can put links into PollDaddy poll items for the Laser Smackdown wrap-up tomorrow, so I needed a test poll. But, of course, if I'm going to go to the trouble, I might as well post it, so here's a dorky poll inspired by the fact that the book I'm using for Quantum Mechanics this term uses CGS units:
What's your favorite system of units?online surveys
It was inspired by a quantum book, but it's a classical Internet, so please choose only one. Or leave a comment to complain about the absence of your preferred choice.
drorzel | April 22, 2010What's the application? Producing artificial "stars" to serve as a reference for telescopes using adaptive optics to correct for atmospheric turbulence. This allows ground-based telescopes to produce images that are as good as those from the Hubble Space Telescope.
What problem(s) is it the solution to? "How can I make this giant telescope produce even more impressive pictures?"
How does it work?The basic problem with ground-based telescopes, as anyone who has ever looked at the stars or listened to nursery rhymes can tell you, is that stars "twinkle." They appear to fluctuate in brightness…
drorzel | April 22, 2010
Scathing Amazon Reviewer Revealed as Author Orlando Figes' Wife - AOL News
Why didn't I try-- oh, right. Because Kate has integrity, as do I. That's why.
(tags: books literature history stupid internet)
Backreaction: It comes soon enough
"I think of the future frequently - and more often than not I think it could come sooner. But sometimes I am stunned when I read things I've been talking about actually become reality."
(tags: computing internet society culture technology science)
A gassy mystery: Researchers discover surprising exoplanetary atmosphere
At what point does "New planet…
drorzel | April 21, 2010What's the application? An optical frequency comb is a short-duration pulsed laser whose output can be viewed as a regularly spaced series of different frequencies. If the pulses are short enough, this can span the entire visible spectrum, giving a "comb" of colored lines on a traditional spectrometer. This can be used for a wide variety of applications, from precision time standards to molecular spectroscopy to astronomy.
What problem(s) is it the solution to? 1) "How do I compare this optical frequency standard to a microwave frequency standard?" 2) "How do I calibrate my spectrometer well…
drorzel | April 21, 2010
We Are Not Alone § SEEDMAGAZINE.COM
"From illusory "canals" spied through blurry 19th century telescopes, to today's high-endurance robotic rovers, in the search for life beyond Earth, Mars is the perennial favorite target. It is, after all, the most hospitable planet we know other than our own.
But despite the Red Planet's watery, warm ancient past and more than a century of Earthlings' increasingly sophisticated scrutiny, no clear evidence of Martian life has ever been found. At least, that's the mainstream scientific consensus. But according to a new book by astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-…
drorzel | April 20, 2010What's the application? Using lasers to cut and/or cauterize tissue during surgical procedures, instead of the traditional very small very sharp knives.
What problem(s) is it the solution to? 1) "How can we do surgery without touching the tissues being operated on?" 2) "How can I get rid of these annoying glasses/contact lenses?"
How does it work? First, you strap a device to your head that lets you shoot laser beams from your forehead, like one of the X-Men. then you use a magnifying glass to focus it to where it needs to be. Like so:
(I'm not sure exactly what sort of procedure that is,…
drorzel | April 20, 2010
Ptahhotep
"The Instruction of Ptahhotep to his son survives in papyrus copies. It is a collection of maxims (not all are given here) dealing with human relations. The maxims do not cover all aspects of Egyptian life. For the most part, they touch on the peaceful virtues of kindness, justice, truthfulness, moderation and self-control.
A man by the name of Ptahhotep was a vizier under King Isesi of the Fifth Dynasty. If he authored the instruction under this name, then it dates from 2450-2300 BCE. On the other hand, Miriam Lichtheim argues that the style of the document puts its origin close…
drorzel | April 19, 2010What's the application? The goal of laser ignition fusion experiments is to heat and compress a target to the point where the nuclei of the atoms making up the sample fuse together to form a new, heavier nucleus, releasing energy in the process. Nuclear fusion is, of course, what powers stars, and creating fusion in the laboratory has been the holy grail (well, a holy grail, at any rate) of nuclear physics research for the last sixty-plus years.
What problem(s) is it the solution to? 1) "Can we create fusion reactions in a laboratory setting on Earth?" 2) "How can we get more helium without…
drorzel | April 19, 2010
Rev. Mod. Phys. 82, 1155 (2010): Introduction to quantum noise, measurement, and amplification
"The topic of quantum noise has become extremely timely due to the rise of quantum information physics and the resulting interchange of ideas between the condensed matter and atomic, molecular, optical-quantum optics communities. This review gives a pedagogical introduction to the physics of quantum noise and its connections to quantum measurement and quantum amplification. After introducing quantum noise spectra and methods for their detection, the basics of weak continuous measurements are…
drorzel | April 18, 2010SteelyKid was playing with something on the floor behind my chair, so I started reading my newsfeeds. Kate was on the other side of the office, engrossed in her own computer-related program activities. After a moment or two, SteelyKid got up, and ran into the living room. Kate and I both finished what we were reading, then noticed a disturbing lack of baby noise.
"Where did she go?" Kate asked.
"I dunno," I replied, and we both got up from our computers and headed out of the office in opposite directions. We met in the kitchen, with no SteelyKid. Kate said, "Seriously, did she go upstairs?"…