drorzel | September 22, 2009The scheduled release of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog is three months from today. This is, as you most likely know, a book based on the frequent conversations Emmy and I have about physics:
To mark the pre-anniversary, Emmy has decided to use social media to showcase her physics knowledge: She's answering physics questions on Twitter. Post a question, tag it #dogphysics, and she'll answer it there. If you've got a philosophical objection to Twitter, you can leave a comment here, and get your answer via the Twitter link above.
So, if you've got a question about physics that you've been…
drorzel | September 22, 2009Buried in the weekend links dump at the arxiv blog was Scalable ion traps for quantum information processing:
We report on the design, fabrication, and preliminary testing of a 150 zone array built in a `surface-electrode' geometry microfabricated on a single substrate. We demonstrate transport of atomic ions between legs of a `Y'-type junction and measure the in-situ heating rates for the ions. The trap design demonstrates use of a basic component design library that can be quickly assembled to form structures optimized for a particular experiment.
At first glance, this isn't a sexy paper…
drorzel | September 22, 2009One of the errands I ran Sunday with SteelyKid was a run to the local Eddie Bauer outlet to pick up a couple more pairs of khakis for work (well, they're black, actually, but in style the same as the khaki ones). As is often the case, I ended up buying two different sizes-- not just because this was at a discount outlet store, but because of the inconvenient quantization of pants.
I have a collection of khakis in two different waist sizes. this is partly because I lost a whole bunch of weight back in the Bad Time when I had horrible stomach problems (much of which I've gained back), but also…
drorzel | September 22, 2009
blarg? » Can I Get A Witness
"Look, if you want to save journalism, if you want to be a journalist, you need to actually perform the act of journalism. The kind of writing that we desperately need, that we may be well-informed and responsible citizens, not these bullshit celebrity-noise puff pieces. Leave that crap to transient rags like Gawker; it's their métier, says so right there on the label, and shouldn't be yours. Go find something out, something important, and tell us. It might be complicated, it might need to be explained at length, contextualized and clarified, sure. It might be…
drorzel | September 21, 2009I got email a couple of weeks ago asking if I'd be interested in appearing at the Empire State Book Festival in Albany next April. While I recognize intellectually that I will be an Actual Published Author by that time, this still feels sort of weird. Anyway, it's in Albany, so of course I said yes. Not a real big logistical hurdle for that one...
This is probably as good a time as any to mention that I am happy to do talks, panels, whatever that will help promote my book, the subject of physics, or science in general. I don't have any formal book-tour plans at this point, but that's mostly…
drorzel | September 21, 2009I'm halfway through Graham Farmelo's Dirac biography at the moment, and enjoying it quite a bit. Farmelo cites Dirac as one of the first physicists to evaluate theories on their mathematical beauty, rather than waiting for experiments. This is in stark contrast to his Cambridge colleague Rutherford, who was highly skeptical of abstract theory, and preferred to deal in concrete experiments.
This is one of the great chicken-and-egg problems in science: Should data come before theory, or should theory come before data? Thus, this seems like a good topic for a poll:
How do you like your science…
drorzel | September 21, 2009Well, that kept me up way past bedtime-- my 9:15 lecture is going to be fantastic-- but at least my Giants pulled out the win at the end. I couldn't think of a better way to open the Cowboys' new stadium...
And really, there's no better metaphor for the Cowboys in the Jerry Jones era than that gigantic video screen: hugely flashy, ridiculously expensive, and liable to interfere with the playing of the game at any moment. If Jerry was setting out to build a scale model of his own ego, he nailed it.
While the end result was good, from the perspective of a Giants fan, this still left plenty to…
drorzel | September 21, 2009
Thorium-fuelled exports coming from India
"The original design is fuelled by a mix of uranium-233 and plutonium bred from thorium using fast neutron power reactors earlier in a thorium fuel cycle. The LEU variant is suitable for export because it does away with the plutonium, replacing it with uranium enriched to 19.75% uranium-235.
Producing 300 MWe, the unit is less than one third the capacity of a typical large reactor. It is designed to operate for up to 100 years and has a "next generation" level of safety that grants operators three days' grace in the event of a serious incident and…
drorzel | September 20, 2009I'm working on a badly-neglected project this morning, so here are a couple of pictures of SteelyKid from yesterday's trip to the park. (You can see more in my Flickr sets, linked at left.) This one gets you the basic idea of what it's like taking a very active toddler to the playground:
Finish one thing, and run determinedly toward the next thing...
(This also shows off her awesome "S is for Space Ship" shirt, which is a little big on her, but then, it's a 24-month size, a full nine months ahead of her nominal size. It's also from the boys' department, because girl-toddler clothes all suck…
drorzel | September 20, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009 « Medium Large
Canadian Province and Territory Mottoes: Ontario: So Clean; So Quiet; So Polite, You Just Know That We're a Serial Killer.
(tags: comics silly world Canada)
Is String Theory an Unphysical Pile of Garbage? : Starts With A Bang
Ethan's not what you would call "subtle"...
(tags: physics science astronomy theory particles blogs starts-with-bang)
drorzel | September 19, 2009Josh Rosenau is thinking from California about the role of analogy and metaphor in arguments. This follows from a series of posts arguing with Jerry Coyne et al. about the usual science vs. religion stuff. The analogy thing comes in because in the first post, he made reference to Slacktivist's excellent post about vampires and crosses, saying:
Vampires don't exist, and slacktivist makes it absolutely clear that he knows this. But telling stories about vampires is a great way to convey certain truths about the world we all live in. These aren't truths that science can independently verify, but…
drorzel | September 19, 2009
Views: In Loco Parentis, Post-Juicy Campus - Inside Higher Ed
"With the digital age in full swing, colleges must reconceptualize what it means to act in loco parentis, and how, to the extent they can do anything, they can best serve their students. The answer is not to read into OCR investigations a new era of control and responsibility. Disaggregated problems require disaggregated solutions. Colleges cannot wrap their students in bubble wrap whenever they venture outside of their comfortable residence halls, and even bubble wrap does not protect against digital slander. Rather than…
drorzel | September 18, 2009Over at Jim Henley's place, Thoreau further justifies his status as an essential academic-physics blogger with a really good post about the problem of introductory labs:
In freshman labs, generally you’re trying to measure something (at least as it’s done at many schools). The measurement is never as clean as the stuff being taught in lecture (or interactive discussion-based peer-involved blah blah whatever). There is nothing wrong with the fact that lab measurements are not as clean as the stuff in lecture! However, it does mean that you aren’t spending those 3 hours thinking about the…
drorzel | September 18, 2009I'm teaching Quantum Optics again this term, talking about the interaction between light and matter in circumstances where you need to account for the quantum nature of one or both of those. We're starting on the actual interactions today, albeit with a semi-classical approach (Einstein coefficients and the Fermi Golden Rule), but we've just finished a whirlwind review of quantum mechanics, including a rapid survey of the different effects that determine atomic energy levels, and some of the ways we have to move those around.
This suggests a really dorky idea for a poll, so:
What's your…
drorzel | September 18, 2009
slacktivist: Our trespasses
"But then there's this other phrase which, when we listen to ourselves saying it, is the scariest part of any given Sunday. "Forgive us our trespasses," we pray, "as we forgive those who trespass against us."**
That's disturbingly conditional. It's almost contractual. The conditions laid out there are crystal clear and explicit, but we tend to recoil from them. We pray this one prayer more than any other, but every other prayer omits this quid pro quo. "Forgive us according to thy infinite mercy," we pray, or "according to your boundless grace," or "for Jesus'…
drorzel | September 17, 2009SteelyKid says "Yayyy! Baby Blogging on the stairs!"
(Not shown: Kate making a similar mouth-wide-open face for a very different reason...)
drorzel | September 17, 2009Theorem: The worthiness of a blog post on a political or social topic is inversely proportional to the number of times derisive nicknames are used to refer to the author's opponents.
drorzel | September 17, 2009They're discussing stupid playing-through-injury stories on Mike&Mike this morning-- Golic talked about injuring his shoulder badly enough that he couldn't lift his arm above shoulder level, and using a wall to push his hand up higher than that, so the trainer would let him go back in for the second half. Having separated both shoulders playing rugby (at different times), I know just how that feels. One of my senior-year games against amherst, I had to have my fellow second row lift my arm up for me a few times in the try zone, to loosen it up enough to keep going. (We lost the game, but…
drorzel | September 17, 2009
KFC's Double Down Sandwich | Update | A.V. Club
"God clearly did not mean for humans to eat chicken, bacon, and low-quality, gelatinous cheese at the same time. I was suddenly struck with a strange urge to keep kosher. Each bite became a grueling endurance test, as the cheese and grease began to override the chicken breasts, and the sandwich grew more revolting-looking with each bite."
(tags: food avclub silly)
Dresden Codak » Archive » 42 Essential 3rd Act Twists
"Schedenfreude proves unruly."
(tags: comics writing literature theater fantasy mystery sf silly)
AAUP: Creating LGBTQ-…
drorzel | September 16, 2009Prompted by a discussion in another channel, a question for you all: What is your preferred type of calculator? That is, when you're doing some sort of problem involving math, and reach for a calculator, what do you reach for?
What Kind of Calculator Do You Use?(survey software)
I think I may have used this topic before, but not in a fancy radio-button poll.