That's the bill for the time that I spent on deciphering his supposed falsification of decoherence. I don't want anyone to fall for his false argument, so here's the correct explanation of the scenario, to save other people the trouble. The center of his so-called "proof" is this modified Mach-Zehnder Inteferometer: Light enters at the lower left, is split by a beamsplitter (which I'm representing as a beamsplitter cube, because that's what I usually use, but it could be anything), redirected by two mirrors to a second beamsplitter where the beams A and B are recombined, then the recombined…

Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / Neglected Books: the list "So, I asked for recommendations for neglected books and authors and had an overwhelming response. I'm going to make the results into a useful reading list, in alphabetical order, with links, and usefully divided. The world is a very big place with a lot of stuff in it, and a lot of books are published and pretty much vanish. They say word-of-mouth is the best way to find books, and these are all books with someone to advocate for them. " (tags: books sf literature blogs tor) slacktivist: Bullies "This is what…

There's an expert-level debate going on in the comments of Wednesday's quantum essentials post, and I do have some thoughts on the matter that I will eventually type up (in a top-level post rather than a comment, at this point). It's Friday, though, and I'm kind of fried. So here's some wibbling about pop music instead. On the way into work this morning, the Bryan Adams chestnut "Summer of '69" came on the radio. I'm probably destroying any credibility I have on the subject of popular music by saying that I have an unironic fondness for that tune, primarily for nostalgia reasons, but also…

The NSF's Science and Engineering Indicators report came out not too long ago, and the bulk of it is, as usual, spent on quasi-quantitative measures of scientific productivity-- numbers of degrees granted, numbers of patent applications for various countries, etc. I find all of those things pretty deeply flawed, so I tend to skip past them and go straight to the stuff about public knowledge and understanding (chapter 7, available as a PDF at the link above). This doesn't get much press, probably because the results are depressing. They've asked a bunch of factual knowledge questions of people…

We're once again in the "things are in the pipeline, but nothing has been posted recently" mode, which is a good excuse for some Amazon neepery. Since the AP review came out, and was printed in 20-odd papers, the sales rank has climbed back into the four digits, and has spent the last few days hovering around 2,000. This is pretty respectable, and Amazon proudly touts it as being "#1 in Books > Science > Physics > Quantum Theory," which sounds nice. Of course, what does that really mean? If you click through to the "Quantum Theory" subcategory, you'll see that it's a weird…

Creation | Film | Review | The A.V. Club "Creation contains some vivid illustrations of evolutionary theory, and some intriguing consideration of what Darwin had to overcome to achieve greatness--in particular, his fear of disappointing his family. But for the most part, Creation is Biopic 101, earnest and over-explained. It's the kind of movie in which characters have to tell each other over and over just how important its subject is, in case we've never heard of The Origin Of The Species. It's also the kind of movie that reduces the life and work of a major historical figure to something…

Here we see SteelyKid enjoying our post-day-care ritual: kickin' back, eatin' pretzels, and watching Pardon the Interruption: "LeBatard always ruins Odds Makers," she says. "He's silly..." There was some screaming and crying a little bit before this was taken, not that you can tell. Pretzels and juice fixed everything. May it always be that simple.

I've mentioned before that I'm going to be giving an invited talk in the LaserFest session at the APS March Meeting. I finally got around to registering for the meeting, and booking my travel. $1,500 on the college credit card-- whee! The March Meeting program is one of the more intimidating meeting programs I've ever seen-- there are 42 parallel sessions in every time block. Yikes. I thought DAMOP was getting to be a little too big to navigate, but this is ridiculous... Speaking of DAMOP, I'll also be going to the 2010 DAMOP Meeting in Houston. I haven't booked my travel for that, yet,…

I'm getting considerably more email from people I don't know these days, which has me wondering about the ways people address one another. Hence, a poll: You are writing an email to a person you have never met before, who you know to be employed by a college or university. What salutation do you use?(survey software) All of the serious answers are risky: 1) Not all doctors are professors. 2) Not all professors are doctors. 3) Some misters and mizzes strongly prefer to be doctors or professors. 4) Many people react poorly to the automatic first-name basis. 5) Some dawgs you shouldn't "Hey."…

Set the bloggy flags at half-mast, for Dave and Greta are shutting down Cognitive Daily. OK, maybe three-quarter-mast, because they're doing it of their own free will, but still, they'll be missed. And now I need to find a new example of an extremely successful blog that is always and unfailingly about science, with no excursions into politics or media criticism. Suggestions welcome in the comments.

arXiv.org help - arXiv Support FAQ "This FAQ addresses questions raised in response to Cornell University Library's work to develop a diversified funding model to support arXiv. In a nutshell: We are working with peer libraries to investigate voluntary contributions from institutions that are the heaviest users of arXiv. " (tags: science publishing funding academia) Cherie Priest » Blog Archive » Control Things authors mostly control, things authors may influence in some measure, and things over which authors have virtually no say. (tags: books publishing writing business sf blogs)…

The previous collection of things everyone should know about quantum physics is a little meta-- it's mostly talking up the importance and relevance of the theory, and not so much about the specifics of the theory. Here's a list of essential elements of quantum physics that everyone ought to know, at least in broad outlines: 1) Particles are waves, and vice versa. Quantum physics tells us that every object in the universe has both particle-like and wave-like properties. It's not that everything is really waves, and just sometimes looks like particles, or that everything is made of particles…

Derek Lowe has a post talking about things biologists should know about medicinal chemistry. It's a good idea for a post topic, so I'm going to steal it. Not to talk about medicinal chemistry, or biologists, of course, but to talk about my own field, and what everyone-- not just scientists-- should know about quantum physics. Not just humans, either-- even dogs should know this stuff. 1) Quantum physics is real. Probably the hardest quantum idea to accept is the notion of vacuum energy and "virtual particles"-- stuff appearing out of empty space, then disappearing again seems almost too weird…

Another mass media appearance for How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: I will be interviewed on the Thom Hartmann Program at 1pm (give or take a small amount) this afternoon. If you're a regular listener, well, this will plug right into your schedule. If you're not, but would like to hear what I sound like when I have a cold and am talking about the book, that link has both a list of stations carrying the show and a "Listen Live" link. UPDATE: Actually, scratch that. They're postponing, due to the election last night. Will be rescheduled for next week, hopefully.

The college bookstore has set up a display table right at the front of the store with a bunch of copies of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, which is kind of a kick. Some of my students asked me about it in lab yesterday. The big news, though, is that the Associated Press review ran Monday. I've known they were working on one for a while, now, but didn't see it before it went live. It's not a great review-- it ends "For people who are smarter than the average mixed-breed dog, this might be a good way to learn about the nature of microscopic particles. But I'm waiting for Orzel to write…

james_nicoll: In the spirit of Christopher Wren "How much would it cost to rebuild Port-au-Prince with the infrastructure a modern, first-world city should have? Large sections of it will have to be rebuilt so it might as well be done right." (tags: economics politics world blogs james-nicoll) Hester Prynne, Schmester Prynne, or Sarah Palin's Ressentiment Clubhouse « Easily Distracted "I think many people, even Sarah Palin's devotees, might concede under pressure that having a President who has a strong baseline knowledge about the world, about American history, about economics, and so…

I watched most of Syracuse's win over Notre Dame last night. Two basketball games in the same week! Luxury! The thing that really jumps out at me about this team as opposed to last year's is that they're calm. Last year Eric Devendorf in particular, and to a lesser extent Johnny Flynn, tended to panic a little when the other team would make a run. A ten-point lead would get cut to three or four, and Devedorf would respond by chucking up a thirty-footer, which would miss, and give the opponent a chance to tie, followed by another forced shot, and so on. This group, on the other hand, doesn't…

Consider the air around you, which is hopefully at something like "room temperature"-- 290-300 K (60-80 F). That temeprature is a measure of the kinetic energy of the moving atoms and molecules making up the gas. At room temperature, the atoms and molecules in the air around you are moving at something close to the speed of sound-- around 300 m/s (give or take a bit, depending on the mass). If you're a physicist or chemist looking to study the property of these atoms and molecules, that speed is kind of a nuisance. For one thing, the atoms and molecules tend not to stick around long enough to…

Consider the air around you, which is hopefully at something like "room temperature"-- 290-300 K (60-80 F). That temeprature is a measure of the kinetic energy of the moving atoms and molecules making up the gas. At room temperature, the atoms and molecules in the air around you are moving at something close to the speed of sound-- around 300 m/s (give or take a bit, depending on the mass). If you're a physicist or chemist looking to study the property of these atoms and molecules, that speed is kind of a nuisance. For one thing, the atoms and molecules tend not to stick around long enough to…

Cocktail Party Physics: a bevy of bloggers (#scio10) "I especially liked Carl's (I think it was Carl) description of this emergent media enterprise as a delicately balanced ecosystem, each segment interdependent on the others for survival. Several weeks ago, Bora! posted one of his occasional rants relishing the collapse of traditional media, in which he baldly stated that he really didn't care if the cost of the revolution was journalists losing their jobs. (I can't find the link, sorry. He's just so damned prolific.) I adore Bora!, but he's wrong about this. He should care that…