March 11, 2008
Another of the labs I visited while in DC was Steve Rolston's lab at the University of Maryland. This actually contains the apparatus I worked on as a graduate student, including many of the same quirky pieces of hardware-- Steve was the PI (Principal Investigator) for the metastable xenon lab in…
March 11, 2008
In the previous post on this topic, I discussed the various types of noisy vacuum pumps, both clean and dirty varieties. This time out, we'll deal with the quiet pumps, the ones that don't deafen people working in the lab.
Quiet and Dirty: The quintessential quiet and dirty pump is an oil…
March 11, 2008
The annual March Meeting of the American Physical Society is happening this week in New Orleans. This is the biggest physics conference of the year, by far, with close to 7,000 attendees-- despite what you might think from the Internet, the Condensed Matter crowd who attend the March Meeting…
March 11, 2008
Southern Baptists Back a Shift on Climate Change - New York Times
'[T]he new declaration, which will be released Monday, states, "Our cautious response to these issues in the face of mounting evidence may be seen by the world as uncaring, reckless and ill-informed."'
(tags: politics religion…
March 10, 2008
Over at Cosmic Variance, Sean has a post highlighting some physics blogs that he's adding to the blogroll. Which reminds me that I've been remiss in updating my own links-- I've recently started reading Swans On Tea regularly, and he's got some great science content. Via Tom, I've also discovered…
March 10, 2008
While Kate was off being all lawyerly at her NAAG workshop, I spent my time visiting my old group at NIST, and some colleagues at the University of Maryland. This wasn't just a matter of feeling like I ought to do something work-like while she was workshopping-- I genuinely enjoy touring other…
March 10, 2008
A great many physics experiments need to be conducted at low pressures, in order to avoid sample contamination, thermal effects, or dissipative forces produced by interaction with air. Some experiments don't require all that much in terms of vacuum, while others require pressures so low that they'…
March 10, 2008
A picture from the Small Mammal House at the National Zoo. This is a two-toed sloth (according to the sign on the cage, anyway) that has wedged itelf into a box mounted near the ceiling to take a nap. Tbey had two sloths, actually-- the other had also stuffed itself into a box to sleep. I guess it…
March 10, 2008
Math Suggests College Frenzy Will Soon Ease - New York Times
Changing demographics make admissions offices nervous
(tags: academia education society culture)
March 9, 2008
Mandarin ducks at the National Zoo's bird house. These guys were perched on a railing in the fligt area, and didn't move, even though people were passing no more than a few feet from them, taking pictures.
(Picture by Kate.)
March 9, 2008
Kate was attending a workshop run by the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG, a wonderful acronym) in Washington, DC this Wednesday and Thursday, and when she told me that, I said "Hey, I'm not teaching this term, why don't I tag along?" So, we extended the trip a little bit, and made…
March 9, 2008
Physics comes through at the ballot box:
Stunning many who considered the district west of Chicago reliably Republican territory, Bill Foster, a physicist and Democrat, won a special election on Saturday to fill the Congressional seat that J. Dennis Hastert, the former speaker of the House, held…
March 8, 2008
Let's Play a Game, Part 2: Game Trees and Totally Finite Games « Intrinsically Knotted
Classifying games based on possible moves and winning strategies.
(tags: math science academia games)
...yet I'll hammer it out
The Mentally Scarring Public Service Announcement Tournament. With YouTube…
March 8, 2008
Dave Munger has been spending a lot of time in waiting rooms:
When it comes to waiting rooms, it turns out, eye doctors wipe the floor with everyone else's ass. Not only does the eye doctor have the least shabby interior decor, it also arguably offers the best selection of reading material and…
March 8, 2008
ScienceBlogs is launching a new "Super Reader" program, where each blogger can nominate two readers as "Super Readers" who will be given the ability to tag three posts a week from all of ScienceBlogs for a special RSS feed (this will be done using del.icio.us). This is envisioned as a first step…
March 7, 2008
The Silly Little Show-Biz Book Club: Rollin' With Dre | The A.V. Club
"I will read all these terrible books so you don't have to. It's my latest attempt to transform the stupid, pointless shit I do in my free time into the stupid, pointless shit I am obligated do for my job."
(tags: books music…
March 7, 2008
Today is the last day of our trip, so here's a shot of Her Majesty showing off her regal side.
Of course, the snow on her muzzle kind of undercuts the dignified affect...
March 7, 2008
SportsCenter this morning is basically a big Favre-a-thon, with wall-to-wall coverage of Brett Favre's tearful retirement press conference yesterday. I watched the footage of him choking up, and said "Yeah, he does look pretty old. Probably time to hang it up."
Then I realized: He's less than two…
March 6, 2008
nanoscale views: Reviewing- why, how, and how often?
"well written, thorough, timely referee reports almost always improve the quality of scientific papers"
(tags: academia science physics articles writing)
Shtetl-Optimized » Blog Archive » Long-dreaded politics post
"[A]fter seven years of…
March 6, 2008
Day three of our vacation, and another Action Dog! shot:
Here, Emmy demonstrates that among her other superlative qualities, she is exceptionally strong and stubborn. This is a good shot of the Kong Wubba, as well.
March 5, 2008
The Quantum Pontiff : Twins in Donut Space
Mmmmmm.... Paradoxical Donuts......
(tags: physics relativity theory)
Laelaps : Preaching to the choir
"Has there ever been a time when science has been highly valued by the general public? "
(tags: science society class-war culture history)…
March 5, 2008
The Female Science Professor is thinking about conferences:
Some scientific conferences are dominated by talks and some are comprised of talks + poster presentations. At conferences with talks and posters, it varies from conference to conference as to whether talks are more prestigious or whether…
March 5, 2008
Another dog picture for you to admire while I'm out of town:
It's a little tough to tell what she's doing here, but this is a play-bow-- she's stretched her paws out in front of her and brought the front part of her body down, but her butt is still up in the air. One of us is just off camera,…
March 4, 2008
Information Processing: Bell and GHZ: spooky action at a distance
Comments and references on one of the great examples of quantum weirdness.
(tags: physics quantum science academia education)
Can I See My Grade? :: Inside Higher Ed :: Jobs, News and Views for All of Higher Education
""Can I see…
March 4, 2008
Kate and I are going out of town for a few days. I may or may not check in and post some stuff while we're gone-- it will depend on how busy we are, and how good the Internet access is in the hotel.
I had intended to schedule some substantive posts to appear during our trip, but that didn't happen…
March 3, 2008
Shtetl-Optimized » Blog Archive » Penrose's Gödel argument in rap
"About as logically sound as the original, and with a somewhat better backbeat"
(tags: math music silly)
(Don't Taunt) The Reaper: 26 tempting but inappropriate funeral songs | The A.V. Club
"What able-minded young person hasn…
March 3, 2008
Michael Nielsen is planning to attend an "unconference" and is considering possible topics. He quotes one from Eva Amsen:
My idea: find 4 or 5 volunteers from different backgrounds to sit on a 20 minute panel and (with audience feedback) make a list of Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Science…
March 3, 2008
The Sunday New York Times magazine has a big article on single-sex public education, one of the latest educational fads. The bulk of the article is taken up with looking at promoters of single-sex classrooms for kids:
Among advocates of single-sex public education, there are two camps: those who…
March 3, 2008
This has been a rough basketball season. What with one thing and another, I haven't been able to see many games involving either Maryland or Syracuse, and those games I have seen have been bad. Last night looked like it was going to be an exception, with my Terps holding a big lead over Clemson…
March 3, 2008
This has to be seen to be believed:
(Via the Times Union's high school sports blog, who says it's from a high school game in Oregon.)
