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Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Humorous Status Updates

Chad Orzel now knows more than he would like to about the loathsome political views of some old acquaintances. Chad Orzel is pretty sure the people in question don't read the blog, or at least won't know he's talking about them. Chad Orzel is grateful for the feature that allows him to stop receiving those updates. Chad Orzel really wishes he had better killfile options, though. Chad Orzel longs for a Fire Upon the Deep style sentient AI killfile. Chad Orzel also wants better tools for distinguishing spam comments from slightly off-kilter real comments. Chad Orzel has nothing substantive to…

Physics and Astronomy

Here is a list of Basic Concept posts in Physics and Astronomy. Recently Added: Phase changes, by Janet Stemwedel at Adventures in Science and Ethics; De Broglie Equation (quantum physics) by Wandering Primate; Understanding Electricity by Scott Aaronson at Shtetl-Optimized; Ohm's Law by Chad Orzel at Uncertain Principles; Estimation and DImensions by Chad Orzel at Uncertain Principles Energy by Chad Orzel at Uncertain Principles Fields by Chad Orzel at Uncertain Principles Force by Chad Orzel at Uncertain Principles Measurement by Chad Orzel at Uncertain Principles Entropy by Rob Knop…

Basic Concepts: Physics and Astronomy, Geology, and Chemistry

SPECIAL NOTE:This page and its subordinate pages will no longer be updated. See the new page at my new blog for the live version, and change all your subscriptions. Thank you. This is a list of the Basic Concepts posts being put up by Science Bloggers and others. It will be updated and put to the top when new entries are published. If you are not a Scienceblogger, email me and let me know of your post, or someone else's. If you want suggestions for a topic to write on, just ask. To subscribe to updates, use the RSS feed in the address bar of the complete post. Physics and Astronomy…

What I'm Doing at Boskone

Boskone, the Boston-area SF convention that Kate and I go to every year, is the weekend after next. Once again, I'll be doing a few panels and one talk. For those who might be attending, or who care about this for some reason, here's my preliminary schedule: Saturday10am Physics: What We Don't Understand Geoffrey A. Landis Mark L. Olson Chad Orzel Karl Schroeder Ian Tregillis In 1999 John Cramer wrote a column in Analog describing seven big unsolved problems in physics (including the nature of dark matter, the origin of ultra-high…

Physics and Beer Have EVERYTHING to Do with the Deep Sea

Last night I had the good fortune to meet Dr. Chad Orzel, who just so happens to blog right here on SEED ScienceBlogs at Uncertain Principles. Chad is a physics professor at Union College and blogs on everything physics! He was in merry ole Penn State for a conference so RPM, who blogs at evolgen and is one floor above me, Prof. Steve Steve and I took Chad out for a night on the town. Copious rounds of beer (when their draft menu wasn't lying to us) were consumed an rambunctious conversations on string theory, blogging, publishing and science in general were conducted. Thanks for stopping by…

Book Report: Blurb-tastic

A cosmologist, a science writer, three best-selling science fiction authors, a best-selling mystery novelist, and a Nobel laureate walk into a bar-- Oh, wait, that's not the opening to a joke. That's the list of people who have provided blurbs for my book... Kind of an eclectic bunch, but I'm pretty psyched. I'm not quite sure why the final list of blurbs gets locked in this early-- we don't even have the cover copy written yet-- but it's set now, and they look pretty good: "Chad Orzel teases out the mysterious and seemingly incomprehensible side of advanced physics and makes it…

Isaac Newton's Holiday Countup

On Uncertain Principles, Chad Orzel counts up toward the birthday of that most holy of men: Sir Isaac Newton. Each day Orzel will (hopefully) unveil a new gem that didn't make it into his exciting new book. On Day 1, Chad wrote about the apocryphal moment of inspiration—in a bathtub—that led the Greek polymath Archimedes to first exclaim "Eureka!" And for Day 2, Orzel considers the scientific origin of art among prehistoric peoples in southern Africa. He writes, "The pigment-grinding process wasn’t a simple thing that might happen by accident, but a multi-step process, involving grinding then…

My Boskone Schedule

I'll be on programming at Boskone again this year, and got my preliminary schedule over the weekend: Satur 10am Tunguska at 100 Guy Consolmagno, Jeff Hecht, Chad Orzel On June 30, 1908, an exploding asteroid leveled 2000 square kilometers of Siberian forest, producing a fireball from the sky which knocked pine trees over like matchsticks near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Russia. Such an explosion today over more populated areas could lay waste an entire city. What was it? (Do we know, yet?) What are some of the older theories, and why were they discredited? How likely…

Corny Science (It's Good for You)

Modern science stands on the shoulders of giants, as well as average humans, dwarves and elves, ancient civilizations, and all the bones of the dead—forgotten and otherwise. But sometimes you have to start a new branch of science from scratch. On Uncertain Principles, Chad Orzel continues his count-up to Dec. 25, the birthday of Sir Isaac Newton. Orzel explores the origins of agriculture in the Americas, where nativized people made the best of their local flora, turning a humble, nearly inedible grass into one of the biggest food staples on Earth. Chad writes, "Our other staple crops are also…

Eureka Publicity: Blurbs and Talks

Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist has officially been sent to the printers, so we're at the phase of things where I don't have anything to do but think about publicity. There are some reviews forthcoming, at least one of which I'm very happy about, but I'll share more about that when it becomes public. I've also picked up some nice blurbs from very smart folks: "I know, I know, you think you're just not smart enough to be a scientist. Chad Orzel might convince you otherwise with Eureka. Drawing on basketball, stamp collecting, Angry Birds, Iron Chef, and Antiques Roadshow among his…

Superlative Science Books

Three quick items relating to science in book form: 1) It's that time of year again when every media outlet of any consequence puts out a "Year's Best {Noun}" list, and John Dupuis is checking the lists for science books so you don't have to. It looks like a pretty reasonable year for science in the best non-fiction-book-list world, but you can see for yourself. 2) In the "good books about science coming next year" category, the line-up for The Open Laboratory anthology of outstanding science blogging has been announced. I'm very pleased to report that my write-up of the OPERA preprint was…

Hanks on Stewart: Symbols, Religion, Particle Physics

This is very funny (as you might expect). Chad Orzel posted it because of the references to CERN's super duper collider. (Go see Chad's commentary.) The Daily Show With Jon Stewart M - Th 11p / 10c Tom Hanks thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

My Boskone Schedule

For the half-dozen people who care, my Boskone panel schedule for this year, with a few comments. I don't know for sure that this is the final final version-- I might get added to something else-- but it's probably pretty close. Fri 8:00pm, Visiting Japan If we attend the Worldcon in Yokohama this August, what knowledge should we bring along? What ten phrases are essential? What societal differences should we be prepared to accommodate? What are Japanese SF fans like? What will we eat? How much could all this cost? Vince Docherty, Chad Orzel, Peggy Rae Sapienza I'm sure I'm not the only…

Double Negative Kelvin

Reports that researchers elicited a temperature "lower than absolute zero" might make one question the meaning of the word absolute.  On Built on Facts, Matt Springer writes "temperature is a relationship between energy and entropy, and you can do some weird things to entropy and energy and get the formal definition of temperature to come out negative."  Usually collisions between atoms ensure that less than 50% of atoms in a sample are excited, no matter how much heat you add.  But Springer analogizes "What if I start with a huge pile of ground-state atoms, and one by one I whack them with a…

My LonCon Schedule

Since lots of other people are posting their Worldcon progrm(me) schedules, I might as well share mine, too. Frankly, I find it a little baffling: Kaffeeklatsch Thursday 18:00 - 19:00, London Suite 5 (ExCeL) Kay Kenyon, Chad Orzel Banksian Saturday 11:00 - 12:00, Capital Suite 9 (ExCeL) 'Banksian' has become a commonplace descriptor in SF reviews, but what do we mean by it? What are the characteristics we associate with Iain M Banks' work? How far has his influence travelled? Who is writing Banksian SF today? Chad Orzel (M), Michael Cobley, Jaine Fenn, Paul Kincaid, Ruth O'Reilly We need to…

A Physics chat

Chad Orzel and Jennifer Ouellette are chatting physics and stuff on Bloggingheads.tv:

The Buzz: Beauty and the Dismal Science

Can the elegant models of mathematics and physics be applied to something so intrinsically complicated as the economic behavior of individuals? When economist Paul Krugman argued in The New York Times Magazine last week that the failure of economists to predict the current economic crisis was due to their reliance on beautiful but flawed models of perfect markets, mathematician and hedge fund manager Eric Weinstein immediately tweeted his disagreement, asking ScienceBloggers Chad Orzel and Dave Bacon for their takes as well. Chad brought his experience with physics to bear, while Dave…

High Precision, Not High Energy: Video

Back in August, I gave a talk in Stockholm at the Nordita workshop for science writers, about precision measurement searches for physics beyond the Standard Model. There's now video of this online: The video quality isn't great, but if you'd like a clearer look at the slides, I've posted them on SlideShare. The talk was divided into two parts, though the video is not: Part 1: High Precision, Not High Energy: Using Atomic Physics to Look Beyond the Standard Model (Part I) from Chad Orzel Part 2: High Precision, Not High Energy: Using Atomic Physics to Look Beyond the Standard Model (…

The Buzz: Making Waves on ScienceBlogs

Our physicists-in-residence at ScienceBlogs enjoy catching a few waves every now and then—but what kind? In the most recent installment of his Dorky Poll series, Chad Orzel asked his readers at Uncertain Principles which they preferred: Waves which oscillate perpendicular to their direction of motion—transverse waves—or longitudinal waves, which oscillate in a parallel direction. Matt Springer of Built on Facts had a ready answer for Chad: "Transverse or longitudinal waves, purely as a matter of aesthetic preference? Transverse all the way, of course." Dorky Poll: How Do You Like Your Waves…

A real physicist discusses the new quantum consciousness model

Physicist Chad Orzel, who knows a lot more than I do about the mysterious world of quantum mechanics, criticizes the new model of quantum consciousness proposed by Efstratios Manousakis, which I described recently.

Earth like planet detected?

Since Chad Orzel hasn't posted on it, I figured I'd link to this story about a Nature letter which announces the discovery of a planet 5.5 times as massive as our own! This is pretty cool, I was a big fan of astronomy when I was a kid, and it certainly is the science with tickles my "shock & awe"-o-meter. But combined with the possibility of sub-thousand dollar genomes in the next 5 years, it really does make me feel like we are at the End of Times and soon we shall be as gods. OK, that was a hyperbole, but I can dimly grok the difficulty of a extrasolar detection feat like this....…

How to Teach Physics to Your Dog

Chard Orzel's book, How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, is out. Much props to Chad for being able to write a book while being a professor and father. A man for all seasons indeed!

Check out Chad Orzel's talk on "Weblogs and Science Outreach"

Despite having to employ biophysical methods in my day job, I must admit my woeful understanding of physics as a discipline. I wasn't like my high school grease monkey friends using torque wrenches on their cars with Springsteenonian dedication and my lowest grade in undergrad came in physics. For that reason, I rarely have the opportunity to link to fellow ScienceBlogger, Chad Orzel of Uncertain Principles. Prof Orzel was one of the earliest science bloggers, coming online in June, 2002. Chad posted about being on the programme of a meeting in Waterloo, Ontario, entitled, "Science in the…

Chad's got tenure!

Fellow ScienceBlogger and SAT-Challenge co-investigator Chad Orzel has been awarded tenure at Union College. Why not head over there and offer him congratulations? Let's see if we can make his the biggest ScienceBlogs discussion thread ever! Now get to work updating that bio, Chad! In other news: Fascinating fMRI study demonstrating that people who were closer to ground zero on 9/11 have different memories. More on "flashbulb memories" here. Key difference: physical proximity to the actual events. How to keep memory and mental function working as you age. The Neurocritic wonders if making…

Upcoming Appearances: Boskone

I've been falling down a little in the area of shameless self-promotion, but I will be at Boskone this coming weekend, where I'll be doing three program items: Reading: Chad Orzel (Reading), Fri 19:30 - 20:00 This will be a section from the forthcoming book, probably involving Emmy and particle physics. Or possibly William Butler Yeats. How to Wreck Your Career with Social Media (Special Interest Group) (M), Sat 16:00 - 17:00 What are the new opportunities for public humiliation opened by the Internet? Join this entertaining discussion about authors getting into nasty public spats with…

What Your Canadian Dog Should Know About Quantum Physics, Eh

Having been on hiatus for a couple of months has made me forget my obligation for self-promotion via the blog, but I should note one fast approaching public appearance: I'll be at the University of Waterloo next weekend, where they are celebrating the opening of their shiny new Quantum and Nano Center with an Open House on Saturday, September 29, featuring a bunch of public events. Two of these involve me: first, at 12:30 pm, my "What Every Dog Should Know About Quantum Physics" talk: Chad Orzel, author of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, will explore everything you — and your canine best…

Antici-- (wait for it)-- pation Schedule

Kate and I will both be on programming at Anticipation, the upcoming Worldcon in Montreal. The official program should be up on the web soonish, but I got my schedule by email, and figured I would post it here for those who care: When: Fri 10:00 Title: How to Effectively Talk about Science to Non-Scientists and Why it Matters Description: Presenting one's ideas is ever more crucial for scientists. If we don't do it well, you can be certain someone else will do it badly. (This will be a slightly reconfigured version of the talk I gave at the Science21 meeting last fall.) When: Sat 10:00…

My Sb Colleague, Chad, Explains the Two-fork Toothpick 'Trick'

Since we all had so much fun explaining the video to each other, I thought that all of you might be interested to read physicist Chad Orzel's explanation, along with cool pictures, of the physics underlying the 'two-fork toothpick trick' video.

Dogs & Physics

Fellow Sbling Chad Orzel's book, How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, just might be out in time for you to give it to your dog for Christmas! I don't know what the book is about, but then again, neither does your dog, really. Anyway, check it out, there is a picture of it here.

Physics vs. Fishy Footballs

When it was reported that many of the footballs in the AFC Championship game were inflated below the required minimum pressure, the triumphant New England Patriots were accused of cheating. Looking for an explanation, Chad Orzel whipped out some footballs, a freezer, and the Ideal Gas Law to do some delving. Physically, air pressure depends on the volume of a gas, the number of molecules contained therein, and temperature. Since the volume of a football (versus a balloon) doesn't change much depending on how much air is inside, a change in temperature was the best chance for an innocent…

We are All Scientists

On Uncertain Principles, Chad Orzel differs with Neil Degrasse Tyson, saying that scientific thinking isn't that new, or that exclusive, and in fact has defined humanity from the very beginning. Chad describes science as "a method for figuring things out: you look at some situation, come up with a possible explanation, and try it to see if it works." We start with idle hands, move on to stone tools, furrowed fields, Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and now the pinnacle of our drive to master the universe, the iPad 2. In a follow-up article, Chad dismisses stereotypes of the scientific…

The Buzz: Science Careers Outside Academia

"One of the difficulties with trying to broaden the usual definition of scientists is that there's not a lot of press for non-academic science," Chad Orzel wrote recently on Uncertain Principles. So he decided to give it some exposure himself. Chad's call for scientists with non-academic careers returned a wealth of responses, from the Chief Scientist of an Army laboratory to a communications specialist for the British government. Each of the participants holds a degree in science, but their interviews reveal broad differences in career paths, work environments, and daily routines. See the…

Ninjas explained

Teresa Nielsen Hayden explains what is happening in the video of Total Eclipse of the Heart. Watch the video before you read the explanation. (Video is below the fold.) Plus, the Hurra Torpedo version is something else. Update: Chad Orzel explores YouTubehttp://scienceblogs.com/principles/2006/08/total_eclipse_of_futurism.php for more versions of TEotH.

Publishers Weekly on How to Teach Physics to Your Dog

In this week's issue of Publishers Weekly there's a short review (scroll down) of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog (which will be released December 22): How to Teach Physics to Your Dog Chad Orzel. Scribner, $24 (288p) ISBN 978-1-4165-7228-2 What do dog treats and chasing squirrels have to do with quantum mechanics? Much more than you might imagine, as Orzel explains in this fun introduction to modern physics based on a "series of conversations" with his dog Emmy. Dogs make the perfect sounding board for physics talk, because they "approach the world with fewer preconceptions than humans, and…

Friday Fun: The Bohr-Einstein Debates, With Puppets

Please forgive the ScienceBlogs nepotism this time around, but by far the most amusing thing I've seen on the Internet the last few weeks is SciBling Chad Orzel's video of the Bohr-Einstein Debates. With puppets, of course. Anyways, let's let Chad explain: Back during the DonorsChoose fundraiser, I promised to do a re-enactment of the Bohr-Einstein debates using puppets if you contributed enough to claim $2,000 of the Hewlett-Packard contribution to the Social Media Challenge. I obviously aimed too low, because the final take was $4064.70, more than twice the threshold for a puppet show. So…

The Buzz: What is Science?

Lately some ScienceBloggers have taken to tackling the age-old philosophical question, "What is science?" The ScienceBlogs mothership itself, Seed Media Group, has tackled this definition by assuming the mantra "Science is culture," while Matt Springer from Built on Facts argues the simplistic yet controversial view that science is "the testing of ideas," and Chad Orzel from Uncertain Principles endorses a more operational definition.

A Brief History of Quantum Timekeeping

My course on the history and science of timekeeping has reached the home stretch, with students giving presentations in class for the remainder of the term. My portion of the course was wrapped up with two lectures on "quantum timkeeping," as it were: a lecture on the development of quantum mechanics: History of Quantum Mechanics View more PowerPoint from Chad Orzel And one on the development of atomic clocks: A History of Atomic Clocks View more PowerPoint from Chad Orzel These are pretty fast-moving, but by this point in the course, students were already working on their final…

Statistics > Pundits

"This is a map of the United States, with the spatial distortion reflecting the population sizes of different counties and the relative contribution of electoral college votes." Along with President Obama, statistician Nate Silver emerged triumphant on election night, after calculating a 90% chance of victory for Obama and correctly predicting the outcome of every state.  Chad Orzel allays suspicions of witchcraft on Uncertain Principles, writing that "statisticians have been refining the process of public opinion polling for something like a hundred years."  Silver's projections for Obama…

New Books & eBook Pricing

On EvolutionBlog, Jason Rosenhouse says his new book Among the Creationists: Dispatches From the Anti-Evolutionist Frontline is now available with turnable pages and a hardcover binding. Rosenhouse calls the book "a collection of stories and anecdotes from my experiences attending creationist conferences over the last ten years" as well as an exploration of religious and scientific viewpoints. Electronic versions of the book were released in February. On Uncertain Principles, author Chad Orzel reflects on the anti-trust suit filed by the US Department of Justice against major ebook publishers…

Ruled by Relativity

Walking on two legs, time and space seem universal, but take a good look at the universe, and things start to get mushy. Chad Orzel defines time with a circular-sounding title, writing “there isn’t a giant master clock at the center of the universe that everybody sets their watches by.” Although time can only be measured in ticks, two clocks are seldom in agreement. Chad says “Scientists in Colorado have clocks so good they can measure the change in time from moving at walking speed, or from moving one foot higher in elevation.” On Starts With a Bang, Ethan Siegel revisits the speed of light…

Successful Science Writing

On Confessions of a Science Librarian, John Dupuis considers the keys to writing a successful science book, such as The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Most important, says John, is crossover appeal: "normally picky reviewers loved TILoHL because it's more than 'just' a science book. They saw it as a book that's also about people and society and ethics." John has a list of specific strategies to make a book appeal to a broader audience. Meanwhile, Chad Orzel offers insight into the writing process behind the sequel to How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, a popular science book from 2009…

Father Physics

On Uncertain Principles, Chad Orzel counts down to—what else?—Isaac Newton's birthday. Opening a link on this advent calendar yields not a chocolate, but an equation and an important piece of the physics puzzle. For December 19th, we come to "one of the most revolutionary moment in the history of physics," Max Planck's "formula for the spectrum of the 'black-body' radiation emitted by a hot object at temperature T." Chad writes that Planck's initial mathematical trick became "the opening shot of the quantum mechanical revolution that completely changed physics." For the 18th, Chad delves…

American politics and the available spectrum

Martin Rundkvist, a Swede, has chastised the American body politick for being Right Wing and Even More Right Wing; that is, for lacking a Left in European terms. The American Body Politick, in the person of Chad Orzel, has hit back. Instead of saying that America lacks a Left, says he, say that Europe lacks a Right. Except it doesn't. Europe has some of the more Rightish neo-fascists one can hope to find anywhere. So Chad's rebuttal seems to be a bit misguided. American politics simply is right wing, by which I mean it is conservative or extra-conservative, in the traditions of western…

You Don't Really Understand a Subject Until You Teach It To Your Dog

I'm typing this from the local Barnes and Noble, waiting for the dealership next door to finish changing my oil and inspecting my car. Sadly, they don't have How to Teach Physics to Your Dog on the shelves in their (rather small) science section. Grump, grump, grump. The disappointment at not immediately finding it on the shelves is tempered a bit by seeing it featured in The Big Idea at Scalzi's blog: Want a Big Idea that's about a really big idea? Well, this week's book is about quantum physics, and it doesn't get much bigger than that (well, given the scale quantum physics works on, it…

Out of the Earth, Out of the Blue

Greg Laden reports on a hominid fossil "recovered from the seabed near Taiwan" which reveals new levels of dental diversity among proto-humans and may qualify as a new species. Greg says the specimen known as Penghu "is yet another indicator that multiple different hominids lived on the Earth at the same time after the rise of Homo erectus." But why was it located underwater? In another example of what lies beneath, Dr. Dolittle marvels at "an unexpected find and very exciting moment for researchers;" the discovery of small fish and invertebrates thriving below 740 meters of ice near the…

Excelsior?

We heard recently that 36% of university students "did not demonstrate any significant improvement in learning" upon graduation, although they may have bettered their Xbox skills, social lives, and tolerance to alcohol. Physics professor Chad Orzel isn't surprised by this number, saying it "seems consistent with my experiences both as a student and as a faculty member." According to Chad, laziness is just human nature, and there are other important (if not academic) lessons that college provides. The new statistics, drawn from a book called Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College…

Bracing for President Trump

The election of Donald Trump to the Presidency of the U.S. caught nearly everyone by surprise, and fingers were immediately pointed in all directions as the election's losers looked to lay blame. Chad Orzel offers one relevant narrative: "There are a lot of people who feel like they’re being screwed by a system run for the benefit of people in big cities on the coasts who sneer at them as ignorant, racist hicks." Ethan Siegel extends an olive branch on Starts With a Bang, saying "we all have our biases, even if we ourselves are scientists," and encourages EVERYONE to accept the responsibility…

Chris And Sheril On The Science Network

Earlier this month, we participated in Beyond Belief 3 at The Salk Institute hosted by The Science Network. It was a great chance to air some of the arguments that are developing for our new book--which, as Chad Orzel just mentioned, will be entitled Unscientific America. Here is the first of our sessions, where we lay out how the experience of being involved in Science Debate 2008 led us to think hard about the frayed relationship between science and mainstream American culture:

Editor's Selections: Physics Education and Autism

Here are my Research Blogging Editor's Selections for this week. The first selection this week comes from Chad Orzel at Uncertain Principles. "But wait," you say. "A psychology post in a physics blog?" Yes! Active Engagement Works: "Improved Learning in a Large-Enrollment Physics Class" Autism diagnosis in cultural context. Dorothy Bishop reviews a recent book on autism, and in doing so, reviews quite a bit about autism itself. A great read! That's it for this week... Check back next week for more great psychology and neuroscience blogging!

Coldest, Colder, Freezing, Cool

Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science have fostered chemical reactions at "one hundredth of a degree above absolute zero," analogous to conditions in interstellar space. By merging two parallel beams of ultra-cold atoms, scientists kept them sedated enough for quantum behavior. Chemical reactions "took place in peaks, at specific energies – a demonstration of the tunneling that occurs when quantum particles act as waves." While quantum chemistry is new, physicists have been chilling individual atoms for years—thanks in part to the work of new Nobel laureate Dave Wineland. On…