krauss
drorzel | May 9, 2011While I've got a few more review copies backlogged around here, the next book review post is one that I actually paid for myself, Lawrence Krauss's Quantum Man: Richard Feynman's Life in Science, part of Norton's Great Discoveries series of scientific biographies. I'm a fan of the series-- past entries reviewed here include Richard Reeves's biography of Rutherford, Rebecca Goldstein's biography of Goedel, and David Foster Wallace on Cantor's work on infinity (which is less of a biography than the others). I'm not a huge reader of biographies, but I've liked all the books from this series that…
sastyk | November 23, 2010I hope my readers will forgive me today for lapsing back into my prior profession rather than my present one as an energy and environmental writer. You see, before I gained fame and fortune writing about our ecological situation, I was a mild-mannered college teacher, whose favorite and most important job was teaching rhetoric to undergraduates.
I am perhaps odd in observing that I thought that teaching writing was the most important thing I did. Most academics believe their primary subject matter is the central portion of their work, but I came to see that the place that I had the greatest…
esiegel | April 17, 2008Nothing gets past you, does it? A scientific paper came out earlier this week, and I took a look at it, sighed, and Jamie asked me, "What?" And I said to her, "When I see bad science, it just makes me a little bit frustrated and sad." Of course, I had no intention to write about it.
But then Starts With A Bang reader Matt emailed me, and writes the following about this press release that he had seen:
You have two explanations for these gravitational waves now and that much I understand. But they make it sound as if symmetry breaking and inflation are competing theories. They aren't, right? Do…
sb admin | November 24, 2007(I know I'm not doing this any more, but I couldn't resist.)
An article in New Scientist reports on musing by two reasonable and respected cosmologists— indeed, ones whom I've met myself— that our discovery of dark energy may have shortened the life of the Universe.
To which I can only say "foo". And I say "foo" on two levels. Primarily, on the sensational way in which this is described by New Scientist. But secondarily, on the interpretations of quantum mechanics that respectable cosmologists are promoting.
First of all, for a bit of perspective. The actual research paper on which this…