August 22, 2006
there's a fascinating article in the TimeS this morning about Chinese physicist Xu Liangying, a man who has led an interesting life, to say the least:
The first time he was purged, Xu Liangying was 27, an up-and-coming physicist, philosopher and historian and a veteran of the Communist underground…
August 21, 2006
As hinted last week, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory has some new results conclusively showing that dark matter is a real, physical thing. This is big news, because the previous evidence for dark matter was all indirect, and based on inferring the mass distribution of galaxies and clusters of…
August 21, 2006
60 MinuteS last night had an interview/profile thing on Michael Jordan, shot mostly at his fantasy camp for rich middle-aged guys. For those who haven't encountered the concept before, this is a pseudo-basketball-camp thing where investment bankers pay $15,000 apiece to spend a few days playing…
August 21, 2006
Every summer, we go to a concert or two up at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC). We already had lawn seats for Springsteen, and last week, we had indoor seats for Guster and Ray Lamontagne. We ended up not using the actual seats, thanks to some exceptionally drunk college girls in the row…
August 21, 2006
In an effort to keep from turning into a total slug on weekends, I've taken to riding my bike on the Mohawk-Hudson Bikeway, which passes fairly close to our house. Getting on the trail can be a little nerve-wracking, depending on the traffic, but once on it, it's a pleasant ride all the way to…
August 20, 2006
Verizon, in its wisdom, has decided that Chateau Steelypips is not, in fact, in need of DSL service this weekend. We've been without Internet connectivity since mid-afternoon yesterday. This is probably for the best, as my neck and shoulder are starting to suffer some twinges indicative of muscle…
August 19, 2006
Since everyone else is doing it, I'll go along with the game, and post five random quotes that "reflect who you are or what you believe," chosen from the randomizer at quotationspage.com.
This actually took a while, because I'm not wild about most of what they throw out. I'll throw in a bonus sixth…
August 18, 2006
The Times takes up the critical question of locating the boundary between Red Sox and Yankees fans in New York and Connecticut. They do a comprehensive survey of the boundary line in CT, but only a fairly cursory sweep north.
Albany is on the Yankees side of the line, but it's a near thing. Union's…
August 18, 2006
For some reason, I've been thoroughly exhausted all week, and being out late last night for a concert hasn't helped any. Thus, you're not going to get much in the way of substantive blogging from me today.
I did want to note a weird example of synchronicity in the physics-related blogosphere,…
August 18, 2006
Lately, I've taken to putting ESPN's Mike and Mike show on the tv in the morning while I make breakfast and do my morning exercises. It's sort of interesting to watch people doing a radio show on tv, I enjoy their shtick, and now that the NFL season is nearly upon us, it actually sort of resembles…
August 18, 2006
As the "binary liquid explosive" plot sounds a little implausible, and the usual lack of, you know, hard evidence regarding the plot begins to become clear, the question has to be asked: what was really up with the terror plot that has banned an entire phase of matter?
Wondermark has the answer.
(…
August 17, 2006
Back when I was an undergrad, I spent the summer before my senior year on campus working on my thesis project (trying to build a MOT for rubidium, which never did work). That same summer, one of the guys I did problem sets with, we'll call him J., who was only a rising junior, was working with the…
August 17, 2006
Inside Higher Ed has a short news story on a new report on textbook prices that finds the big publishers failing to offer low-cost books:
In reviewing the catalogs of each of the publishers, the group looked for 22 frequently assigned textbooks, which had an average cost of $131.44 per book. Of the…
August 17, 2006
Some new additions to the physics blogroll:
1) Not all that new, but I keep forgetting to post a link: Clifford Johnson has spun off Asymptotia from Cosmic Variance, to house his own brand of bike-riding, concert-going, vegetable-buying physics blogging. If you read Clifford's stuff at Cosmic…
August 17, 2006
True Lab Stories really are everywhere these days. Via Inside Higher Ed's Around the Web, a blog called "What the Hell Is Wrong With You?" offers True Lab Stories: The Party Game (my name, not hers):
Back in the good old days, when La Blonde Parisienne and I were bright young grad students working…
August 16, 2006
Over at Gene Expression, Razib is collecting ten-word summaries of evolutionary theory, with follow-up posts here and here. Because I'm completely shameless about this sort of thing, I'm going to swipe the idea, and apply it to physics.
Of course, physics as a discipline covers a bit more…
August 16, 2006
Over at Cosmic Variance, JoAnne is soliciting ideas for graphics to explain the Higgs Mechanism and Supersymmetry. If you understand these processes, and have a flair for graphic design, go over there and help her out. She's going to take the best ideas to a workshop on this topic at SLAC, so this…
August 16, 2006
Sarah Monette, aka truepenny is somebody that Kate knows from LiveJournal, so when her first novel, Melusine was published, Kate bought it right away. Weirdly, though, I got around to reading it before she did (thanks to positive reviews of the sequel in Locus, and in spite of the dreadful cover),…
August 16, 2006
Over at Cognitive Daily, Dave Munger post about research into the effect of athletics on academics:
Achievement can be measured in many ways -- grades, homework, attendance, standardized test scores, and enrollment in college. In all of these areas except standardized test scores, even after…
August 16, 2006
True Lab stories are everywhere, as Arcance Gazebo today features a story of new and interesting liquid nitrogen experiments:
Condensed matter labs such as ours receive frequent deliveries of liquid nitrogen in one- or two-hundred liter dewars. Unfortunately, most of the Berkeley cond-mat labs are…
August 15, 2006
Yesterday, I spent $52 (plus shipping) buying sand. Not a gret big sack of sand, either-- just 200 grams of it. I count it as a bargain, too, because I was prepared to spend twice the amount for half as much.
Now, granted, the $1000/kg sand is extremely high purity silicon dioxide, designed to be…
August 15, 2006
I'm in the process of putting together my tenure documents (I know I've been saying this for weeks. It's a long process, OK?). Most of these are really not appropriate for reproduction here, but I'll post a few of the things I'm writing, when it's reasonable to do so.
A major part of the tenure…
August 15, 2006
Also in the Times today is an opinion piece by Lawrence Krauss on why the Kansas school board election isn't the end of the fight. He quotes some damning things from the chairman of the school board, and then observes:
A key concern should not be whether Dr. Abrams's religious views have a place in…
August 15, 2006
There's an interesting article in the Times today about Grisha Perelman and the Poincare conjecture:
Three years ago, a Russian mathematician by the name of Grigory Perelman, a k a Grisha, in St. Petersburg, announced that he had solved a famous and intractable mathematical problem, known as the…
August 15, 2006
You might think that, being a sciene blogger and all, I would have sources of science news that aren't available to the average person on the street. You would be right, though they're not as useful as you might think... The source for today's news teaser is actually a thank-you email from a…
August 14, 2006
This isn't the usual story about lab mishaps, but I'm not quite sure what other category to put it in. It is a true story about my lab in grad school, though, so we'll call it a True Lab Story.
The mid-90's was not a great time to be working in a government lab, particularly NIST. I mean, it was…
August 14, 2006
As Kate and I set out to run errands the other day, the "Service Engine Soon" idiot light came on in my car (a 1999 Ford Taurus LX). This may or may not mean anything-- Kate got one of those in her Prius a while back and it was nothing-- but if it's actually an indicator of anything serious, I'll…
August 14, 2006
When I switched over the ScienceBlogs, I did so intending to keep my booklog separate. In the last several months, though, the book log has been languishing, in large part because I feel obliged to keep up the quantity and quality of the posts here. Which means that I end up not writing booklog…
August 14, 2006
Beer is wonderful stuff. Not only is it the subject of the oldest known recipe, some have argued that agricultural civilization started in order to brew beer-- see, for example, the comments in this article. And, remarkably, despite the inclusion of both "alcohol" and "carbonated beverages" in the…
August 13, 2006
Not a lot in the Times this week (other than, you know, depressing news about the Middle East), but I did find their piece on couples arguing over audiobooks amusing:
[L]ately an unwitting group has been parachuting into the matrimonial crossfire: authors. As more couples discover how an audio book…
