January 23, 2010
That's the bill for the time that I spent on deciphering his supposed falsification of decoherence. I don't want anyone to fall for his false argument, so here's the correct explanation of the scenario, to save other people the trouble.
The center of his so-called "proof" is this modified Mach-…
January 23, 2010
Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / Neglected Books: the list
"So, I asked for recommendations for neglected books and authors and had an overwhelming response. I'm going to make the results into a useful reading list, in alphabetical order, with links, and usefully divided. The…
January 22, 2010
There's an expert-level debate going on in the comments of Wednesday's quantum essentials post, and I do have some thoughts on the matter that I will eventually type up (in a top-level post rather than a comment, at this point). It's Friday, though, and I'm kind of fried. So here's some wibbling…
January 22, 2010
The NSF's Science and Engineering Indicators report came out not too long ago, and the bulk of it is, as usual, spent on quasi-quantitative measures of scientific productivity-- numbers of degrees granted, numbers of patent applications for various countries, etc. I find all of those things pretty…
January 22, 2010
We're once again in the "things are in the pipeline, but nothing has been posted recently" mode, which is a good excuse for some Amazon neepery.
Since the AP review came out, and was printed in 20-odd papers, the sales rank has climbed back into the four digits, and has spent the last few days…
January 22, 2010
Creation | Film | Review | The A.V. Club
"Creation contains some vivid illustrations of evolutionary theory, and some intriguing consideration of what Darwin had to overcome to achieve greatness--in particular, his fear of disappointing his family. But for the most part, Creation is Biopic 101,…
January 21, 2010
Here we see SteelyKid enjoying our post-day-care ritual: kickin' back, eatin' pretzels, and watching Pardon the Interruption:
"LeBatard always ruins Odds Makers," she says. "He's silly..."
There was some screaming and crying a little bit before this was taken, not that you can tell. Pretzels and…
January 21, 2010
I've mentioned before that I'm going to be giving an invited talk in the LaserFest session at the APS March Meeting. I finally got around to registering for the meeting, and booking my travel. $1,500 on the college credit card-- whee!
The March Meeting program is one of the more intimidating…
January 21, 2010
I'm getting considerably more email from people I don't know these days, which has me wondering about the ways people address one another. Hence, a poll:
You are writing an email to a person you have never met before, who you know to be employed by a college or university. What salutation do you…
January 21, 2010
Set the bloggy flags at half-mast, for Dave and Greta are shutting down Cognitive Daily. OK, maybe three-quarter-mast, because they're doing it of their own free will, but still, they'll be missed.
And now I need to find a new example of an extremely successful blog that is always and unfailingly…
January 21, 2010
arXiv.org help - arXiv Support FAQ
"This FAQ addresses questions raised in response to Cornell University Library's work to develop a diversified funding model to support arXiv. In a nutshell: We are working with peer libraries to investigate voluntary contributions from institutions that are the…
January 20, 2010
The previous collection of things everyone should know about quantum physics is a little meta-- it's mostly talking up the importance and relevance of the theory, and not so much about the specifics of the theory. Here's a list of essential elements of quantum physics that everyone ought to know,…
January 20, 2010
Derek Lowe has a post talking about things biologists should know about medicinal chemistry. It's a good idea for a post topic, so I'm going to steal it. Not to talk about medicinal chemistry, or biologists, of course, but to talk about my own field, and what everyone-- not just scientists-- should…
January 20, 2010
Another mass media appearance for How to Teach Physics to Your Dog: I will be interviewed on the Thom Hartmann Program at 1pm (give or take a small amount) this afternoon. If you're a regular listener, well, this will plug right into your schedule. If you're not, but would like to hear what I sound…
January 20, 2010
The college bookstore has set up a display table right at the front of the store with a bunch of copies of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, which is kind of a kick. Some of my students asked me about it in lab yesterday.
The big news, though, is that the Associated Press review ran Monday. I've…
January 20, 2010
james_nicoll: In the spirit of Christopher Wren
"How much would it cost to rebuild Port-au-Prince with the infrastructure a modern, first-world city should have? Large sections of it will have to be rebuilt so it might as well be done right."
(tags: economics politics world blogs james-nicoll)…
January 19, 2010
I watched most of Syracuse's win over Notre Dame last night. Two basketball games in the same week! Luxury!
The thing that really jumps out at me about this team as opposed to last year's is that they're calm. Last year Eric Devendorf in particular, and to a lesser extent Johnny Flynn, tended to…
January 19, 2010
Consider the air around you, which is hopefully at something like "room temperature"-- 290-300 K (60-80 F). That temeprature is a measure of the kinetic energy of the moving atoms and molecules making up the gas. At room temperature, the atoms and molecules in the air around you are moving at…
January 19, 2010
Consider the air around you, which is hopefully at something like "room temperature"-- 290-300 K (60-80 F). That temeprature is a measure of the kinetic energy of the moving atoms and molecules making up the gas. At room temperature, the atoms and molecules in the air around you are moving at…
January 19, 2010
Cocktail Party Physics: a bevy of bloggers (#scio10)
"I especially liked Carl's (I think it was Carl) description of this emergent media enterprise as a delicately balanced ecosystem, each segment interdependent on the others for survival. Several weeks ago, Bora! posted one of his occasional…
January 18, 2010
One of the less attractive features of the New York Times is its tendency to feature little profiles of horrible people. They're not presented that way, of course, but that's the effect-- I read these articles, and just want to slap everybody involved.
Today's story on marital tensions caused by…
January 18, 2010
A comment on the earlier poll asked about regular series of departmental talks, which the author called a department seminar. We have such a series of talks, bringing in roughly one outside speaker per week, but we call it a colloquium. This calls for a poll to settle the question:
An academic…
January 18, 2010
Before leaving Austin on Friday, I had lunch with a former student who is currently a graduate student at the University of Texas, working in an experimental AMO physics lab. I got the tour before lunch-- I'm a sucker for lab tours-- and things were pretty quiet, as they had recently suffered a…
January 18, 2010
The always interesting Timothy Burke has a post on the economics of conference attendance, inspired by Brian Croxall's essay about why he didn't attend the MLA. The key problem for both of them is that the way the academic job market is structured inn the humanities forces job seekers to attend the…
January 18, 2010
BOOK VIEW CAFE BLOG » It seemed like a good idea at the time: The Slushpile Smackdown
"The traditional method of sifting slush is in-house - a job usually handed out to a junior because it's time consuming and occasionally injurious to mental well being. Why? Because anyone with a word processor…
January 17, 2010
Of special interest to Ohio-type readers: I'm scheduled to do an interview tomorrow, Monday the 18th with Jim Scott of WLW AM in Cincinnati. I'm scheduled to call in at 9:50 am, which looks like it's after the regular show hours, and thus probably a taped interview. It says LIVE in the schedule I…
January 17, 2010
The Barnes and Noble store finder finally indicated the presence of copies in the local stores yesterday, so we made a trip down to the Colonie Center, where they had a half-dozen face out in the Physics section, and probably 15-20 on the new releases table. Woo-hoo!
(Now I can shift to fretting…
January 17, 2010
A couple of nifty bits of news from the British Commonwealth:
The BBC's Magazine Monitor blog noted my Seed article.
Better yet, How to Teach Physics to Your Dog makes Smriti Daniel's list of "the best books to emerge in 2009" in the Sunday Times of Sri Lanka. The other books on the list: The Boy…
January 16, 2010
It's been a while since I did a basketball game recap here, mostly because it's been a while since I saw a whole game. Thanks to the DVR, I saw the whole Syracuse-West Virginia game today, in which Syracuse narrowly escaped Morgantown with a win. They had a ten point lead with two and a half…
January 16, 2010
News: Duncan Challenges NCAA to Change - Inside Higher Ed
"Education Secretary Arne Duncan pulled no punches in a high-profile address here Thursday at the annual convention of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, proposing a series of policy changes that he said could rid college sports…
