silliness
drorzel | June 7, 2010In my write-up about the Hidden Dimensions panel, I mentioned in passing that:
I also would've liked to see an experimental physicist up there, to provide a little more grounding about what the actual problems are, and how you might hope to look for something. But then, I always think there should be more experimental physicists involved in everything.
I'm going to be traveling today, so I thought I would throw up a filler post offering a list of things that would be improved by the inclusion of an experimental physicist. Then I realized that that would be kind of difficult, as everything is…
drorzel | May 31, 2010Today is Memorial Day in the US, which is a holiday to honor the dead of our various wars. It's also the traditional start of summer-type activities, and most people spend it at cookouts and parades and that sort of thing. I say "most people," because our trimester calendar means that we're still in session, and today is a class day like any other, except most of the administrative staff are taking the day off.
In honor of this, a poll:
Which of the following holidays is most annoying to have to spend at work?online survey
The serious options in the poll are all official holidays that are…
drorzel | May 20, 2010I'm home with SteelyKid today, because Shavuot is important enough to close the JCC for two days. This will mean essentially no Internet for me, as it's difficult to type when you're lying on the floor being jumped on by a toddler.
As a filler post, let me take a cue from Making Light and offer you some analogies:
Quantum Mechaincs is to Newtonian Mechanics as:survey software
Choose only one, and be prepared to defend your choice in an essay of no more than 500 words, using examples drawn from the reading.
drorzel | May 14, 2010Blame Bryan O'Sullivan for this-- after his comment about misreading "Bohmian Mechanics" as "Bohemian Mechanics," I couldn't get this silly idea out of my head. And this is the result.
I like to think that this was Brian May's first draft (he does have a Ph.D. in astrophysics, after all), before Freddie Mercury got hold of it:
Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Do objects have real states
Or just probabilities?
Open your eyes
Look up to the skies and see
Studying quantum (poor boy), I need no sympathy
Because I'm easy come, easy go
A little psi, little rho
No interpretation ever…
drorzel | May 6, 2010Tomorrow is the annual Steinmetz Symposium at Union, where students who have done some sort of research present their results. Which means that today there are a lot of students fretting about having to give a public presentation tomorrow.
Just to remind them that there are worse things than giving a research talk to a fairly sympathetic audience, here's a poll about scary things:
Which of these things frightens you the most?Market Research
So, you see, it could be a lot worse...
drorzel | April 30, 2010I'm off to Williamstown this afternoon, to talk about research and alsoHow to Teach Physics to Your Dog. If you need blog-based entertainment, though, here are some shiny new radio buttons for you to click:
You're a beam of light: quick, what's your polarization?online survey
I won't offer a personality analysis based on these results, but after enough people vote, we will be able to determine the angle between this blog's readers and the horizontal. So that's something. Of course, it would require several more polls for full quantum state tomography...
(If you're new here, or ok with old…
drorzel | April 28, 2010I'm teaching Physics 350: Quantum Mechanics this term, which is a junior/senior level elective course using Townsend's book which deals with quantum mechanics in the state vector formalism. The room in which the class meets is the only one in the department that contains a whiteboard (using dry-erase markers) rather than a blackboard (using chalk).
In the first several weeks of the course, I have mostly been using blue markers, because that's what's been in the room. These fade into illegibility very quickly, so today I went into the stockroom to get more, and discovered a box of black…
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 14, 2010I won't attempt to explain the chain of reasoning that led to this topic this morning. The poll itself doesn't need much explanation, though: As any geek knows, the tv show(s) CSI: Descriptive Subtitle rely heavily on fake technologies. which of these would you most like to be real?
Which imaginary technology from CSI would you rather have?online surveys
Yes, I have read the relevant xkcd comic. Personally, I lean toward the image enhancement, because if we had their image processing capability attached to the Hubble, we'd be mapping continents on Earth-like planets in the Andromeda Galaxy.…
drorzel | April 7, 2010I'm still getting things squared away after my blogging break, but as a step on the way back toward normal programming, here's a Dorky Poll: What kind of numbers do you most like to work with?
What kind of numbers do you like best?online surveys
You can only choose a single answer, which I'm sure will come as a disappointment to many of those favoring the later options. You could always vote a second time from a different computer, though...
grrlscientist | March 28, 2010tags: marshmallow peeps, Astropeep, peeponaut, easter, space, humor, funny, silly, video, streaming video
I posted this last year, but I think it is worth repeating .. this streaming video lacks music, but it shows you the adventures of a very special marshmallow peep, an astropeep (or a peeponaut, depending upon which name you prefer) who traveled to the edge of space .. thanks to the Adler Planetarium's "Far Horizons 12" high altitude balloon mission, which rose to nearly to 97,000 feet.
ejohnson | March 16, 2010The 2010 Pi Day Bake-Off was such a smashing success that it would be a challenge for even the most extreme pie enthusiast to fairly judge all 35 entries.
So we've gone ahead and narrowed it down for you to what we hope you will agree are ten very deserving finalists. We based our choices on a mixture of creativity, presentation, and volume of the collective "OHMYGODYUMMMM" sound that they elicited when presented to our respective offices.
Once you think you've settled on your choice, vote for it in the poll on Serious Eats before midnight on Thursday. And if you have a pie in the running…
milhayser | March 15, 2010Like Little Jack Horner, we at ScienceBlogs are not above sitting in a corner and sticking our thumbs into pies. Which is why we're not allowed to have pies in the office. Plums are all fine and dandy, but what else we could pull out of these amazing creations?
Domestigoth gets creative with the Citric Acid in your Eye Pi, incorporating a chocolate crumble crust, delicious citrus custard, and some semi-sweet double bonds. Yes, that's right, chemistry. In a Pi Day pie. It smarts so good.
Team Kellon applies brute force with the Method of Exhaustion Chocolate Pi(e). Hey Archimedes, how…
ejohnson | March 15, 2010We're running out of pie references to use here, so bear with us.
In this post we have a Chicken Tikka Masala pie from Duchess Shiraz, a classic Apple Pi pie from Kate Gaudry, a Stuffed Mac & Cheese Pie with 4-Herb Crust and an Avocado's Number Pie from Veronica Vadakan, and a Cookie Cake Pie (WHAT!) from Dorothy Nguyen.
Duchess Shiraz of the Duchy of Domesticity blog went the savory route with her Chicken Tikka Masala pie. With ginger, garlic, cilantro, garam masala, chili powder, turmeric and more, this pie promises to be long on flavor, short on time in existence.
Kate Gaudry stuck…
ejohnson | March 14, 2010Well, it is finally Pi Day—mathematicians and scientists rejoice!
The number of pies in our inbox doubled overnight, and we woke up to a virtual bakery's worth of pastries. What did we find? We'll have to break it into two posts...
In the first we have Stephanie Patterson's Corned Beef Hash pie and Blueberry Cherry Pi pie, Joan Cook's Pi(es) (a)r(e) square(d), Brownie's Raspberry Rhubarb pie (another take on r2, and Jason Goldman's Bacon and Chocolate Mousse Fibonacci pie.
You want pictures? We have pictures.
Stephanie Patterson hedged her bets and sent us both a savory pie and a dessert pie…
ejohnson | March 13, 2010As the deadline for the 2010 Pi Day Pie Bake-Off approaches, the entries are stacking up. In addition to the pies we've already posted here on Page 3.14, three of our own ScienceBloggers have thrown their hats in the ring. It's a good thing we don't actually have the pies here at ScienceBlogs headquarters to judge, because we'd be running out of counter space for them.
Wait a second, what are we saying? We can definitely find space for them if you want to send them to us...
In this next batch we have a One-Hundred-Digit berry pie from Claudette, a Banana Cream pie from Brendan Jinnohara, and…
ejohnson | March 13, 2010Either we set our oven temperature too high or the competition is heating up here in the 2010 Pi Day Pie Bake-Off.
Yesterday we posted Annie Wang's Archi-meaty pie, Leigh's Rabbiteye Blueberry Pie, and Stephanie's "Grown-Up" S'mores Pie with Guinness, and ScienceBloggers James Hrynyshyn and Pamela Ronald posted their own Strawbarb and Swiss chard-Gruyere pies, respectively.
Today we bring you three more: Mareena Wright's Cauchy's Coconut Cream Condensation Test Pie, Zinjanthropus's USO and Banana Pie with Anthropoid Bread Crust, and Nathan Lau's Chocolate Haupia Pie. We're starting to wish…
ejohnson | March 12, 2010The first entries in the ScienceBlogs/Serious Eats 2010 Pi Day Pie Bake-Off are starting to roll in, and it already looks like its going to be difficult to choose come voting day. We probably shouldn't be writing this post at lunchtime, but here we go anyway with the first three pies:
First, from Annie Wang at frites & fries, the ingeniously titled Archi-meaty pie. Because Archimedes was Greek, the pie itself had to be Greek too, made with lamb, feta, honey, apples and raisins.
Next up is Leigh's Rabbiteye Blueberry Pie, originally posted on her blog 5 Acres & A Dream. Freshly…
drorzel | February 5, 2010I have chickened out in the face of the Snowpocalypse, and moved my flight up to get out of DC before the storm. I'm too old to sleep in airports any more.
In honor of my spending another day on a plane, here's another airline-themed poll for you:
The flight crew insist I turn off and stow my iPod during take-off and landing because:(answers)
In the unlikely event of a loss of cabin pressure, please enter your own vote before assisting your fellow passengers in entering theirs.
(I can provide empirical evidence that at least one of these is wrong.)
drorzel | February 4, 2010I'm on the road today, so here's a poll for you, in honor of the question I will probably be getting asked right around when this posts:
Would you like a beverage?(surveys)
Please be sure that your comments are stowed beneath the seat in front of you, or in the overhead compartment. Thank you for flying Uncertain Principles.