March 25, 2008
Dick Vitale is yapping about changing the rules of college basketball again, undeterred by the fact that the last time they listened to him it was an unmitigated disaster (the season or two when they replaced the alternating possession on a held ball with a "ties go to the defense" rule that proved…
March 25, 2008
Here's a picture of the gas-handling line leading to the discharge region seen in the plasma post:
How many valves can you count in that picture? If you said "seven," give yourself a pat on the back. Here's the same picture with the valves numbered for your convenience:
("Seven! Seven valves! Ha…
March 25, 2008
EurekAlert provides the latest dispatch from the class war, the the form of a release headlined " Family wealth may explain differences in test scores in school-age children":
The researchers found a marked disparity in family wealth between Black and White families with young children, with White…
March 24, 2008
A couple more pretty pictures of the apparatus, to pass the time:
This is the plasma discharge source that we use to make metastable atoms. We excite the gas using a RF coil (under the tinfoil) with a couple of watts of power at 145 MHz (local ham radio people must love me...), which creates a…
March 24, 2008
Behold, the end of the world is at hand!
They said I was mad-- mad!-- but now they'll pay...
Well, ok, it's not actually a doomsday weapon. It's a shot of the main experiment chamber in my lab, taken in very low light in an attempt to capture the orange glow of the ion gauge inside the chamber. It…
March 23, 2008
Today is Easter Sunday, which I will be celebrating in the traditional manner: by, um, driving across half of New York and Pennsylvania... OK, maybe that's not the usual tradition...
I'm giving a talk tomorrow at Bucknell, so I need to get to Lewisburg, PA tonight. This will allow me to stop…
March 23, 2008
Ladies and gentemen, one of the three worst pictures ever taken of me:
There is, of course, a story behind this. It's not a particularly good story, but there is one...
That's my college ID, from my freshman year at Williams. It's actually the second ID I got, because while I was on spring break…
March 23, 2008
Relativity: Measuring the speed of light « Skulls in the Stars
A history of experiments through the ages.
(tags: precision-measurement experiment history science)
Nanocrystals could help recover waste heat - physicsworld.com
"[T]he thermoelectric figure of merit (ZT) for the ingots increased…
March 22, 2008
I got a late start this morning, and had to run some errands today, but I would be remiss if I didn't post something to commemorate the wackiness in the Tampa subregional of the NCAA Tournament. They played four games yesterday in Tampa: the first two went into overtime, with Western Kentucky…
March 22, 2008
Security Beat
The DHS gets security advice from Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and David Brin. I feel safer already.
(tags: stupid SF war US politics)
States' Data Obscure How Few Finish High School - New York Times
"Like Mississippi, many states use an inflated graduation rate for federal…
March 21, 2008
Congratulations to Davidson, who just knocked off Gonzaga. It's a 7-10 game, so not that big an upset, but there aren't a lot of liberal arts schools winning NCAA games, so let's hear it for the Wildcats.
March 21, 2008
There was a faculty-student happy hour event last week for St. Patrick's Day, and I spent a bunch of time drinking Irish beer, listening to Irish music (one of the English department faculty is an accomplished piper, and brought a bunch of other local musicians in to play for the party), and…
March 21, 2008
There was a lot of basketball played yesterday, and a lot more will be played today, but the most important of these games was unquestionably Syracuse's victory over Maryland last night in the Carrier Dome.
What? Yes it's an NIT game, not an NCAA game. So what? They're the two teams I root for, and…
March 21, 2008
The Hugo Award nominees for this year have been released. The category I care most about is Best Novel, where we have:
The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon (HarperCollins, Fourth Estate)
Brasyl by Ian McDonald (Gollancz; Pyr)
Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer (Tor; Analog Oct. 2006-Jan/Feb.…
March 21, 2008
Backreaction: Experimental Traffic Jams
More detail on the Japanese simulation of Washington, DC.
(tags: physics science experiment video youtube)
What is the matter with the universe? - Telegraph
An article on CP violation experiments, which is pretty good, but might be dated=-- I thought…
March 20, 2008
Over at Making Light, Abi has proposed a parlour game using books as Tarot cards. As always for Making Light, the resulting comment thread is full of dizzyingly erudite responses, and clever literary in-jokes.
But it strikes me that there's a fundamental flaw in the game-- Abi's examples all…
March 20, 2008
Johan Larson asks:
How would you change the requirements and coursework for the undergraduate Physics major?
This is a good one, but it's a little tough to answer. I have ideas about things I'd like to change locally, but I'm not sure I really have the perspective I would need to be able to say…
March 20, 2008
I give you the last four rounds of the Worst NCAA Pool Bracket Ever:
That's small and hard to read, but it's filled out with the winners determined by the rankings of the physics graduate programs of the competing schools. (If only one of the schools offers a Ph.D. program in physics, that school…
March 20, 2008
The coolest-sounding science news of the moment is undoubtedly "Hubble Finds First Organic Molecule on an Exoplanet""
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has made the first detection ever of an organic molecule in the atmosphere of a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting another star. This breakthrough is…
March 20, 2008
HLS: News: Harvard Law School launches new Public Service Initiative
"Harvard Law School is announcing that it will pay the third year of tuition for all future students who commit to work in public service for five years following graduation. "
(tags: academia economics law society)
Oh, he's…
March 19, 2008
A question for the Firefox users: How do I make Firefox on a PC use something other than Adobe Acrobat to read PDF files?
Background: Opera is my browser of choice for web surfing, but I use Firefox for accessing GMail, Movable Type, and a few other sites that don't play well with Opera, and…
March 19, 2008
Anon_student asks:
You seem to enjoy teaching most of the time, but what traits/habits in students absolutely infuriate you?
Hoo, boy. There are so many, it's hard to choose just one...
If I'm allowed to group things together into a larger category of offense (and it's my blog, so I can do what I…
March 19, 2008
"A" asks:
Given the chance, would you take a job at a major research-university, or do you enjoy teaching a lot and doing some research at your small liberal arts college?
My first answer is "no," though I guess it would depend on the terms of the offer. In general terms, though, I'm very happy…
March 19, 2008
Eric Lund asks:
Do you have any comments on the Eliot Spitzer scandal/resignation?
Nothing original, which is why I haven't commented. I had the same "what he said" reaction as most people who linked to August J. Pollak, but I didn't think that was worth a post.
I've never met Spitzer myself,…
March 19, 2008
As approximately six billion other blogs have noted, Arthur C. Clarke is dead. His obit in the Times runs to three pages, which is a good indicator of just how long and distinguished his life was.
My initial reaction is similar to Matt McIrvin's: it feels like the passing of an age. Bradbury and…
March 19, 2008
First-ever spring break quidditch tour March 22-29
The Middlebury Quidditch Club hits the road.
(tags: academia books sports silly SF)
Tenure, the Movie :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, and Views and Jobs
"I'm not sure how much I'll expect accuracy out of a Luke Wilson…
March 18, 2008
Joshua Palmatier, whose first two books I enjoyed, and probably ought to booklog, has organized the "Plot Synopsis Project," in which a bunch of published SF authors post copies of the plot synopses they sent with their successful novel pitches, and talk about the writing process. Most of them have…
March 18, 2008
Adrienne asks:
Why, when you apparently are an agnostic or atheist, did you get married in a church? And are you going to baptize your baby? Raise him/her in a religious framework?
Now, here's a nice volatile question...
Why did we get married in a church? Because religion is more than just…
March 18, 2008
chezjake asks:
OK, try this one on for size. Do you have a bias against cats? We know that you have Emmy, and therefore you like dogs, but is there a reason you don't also have a cat?
Well, the main reason we don't have a cat is that we have Emmy. She divides the world of furry quadrupeds into two…
March 18, 2008
J-Dog asks:
So, how come you don't blog more about Rugby?
Because it's not on tv regularly, and I can't blog about sporting events that I don't see.
This is a persistent source of irritation, though. For example, Wales just won the Six Nations, and the only mention of it I've seen on the "…
