Chad Orzel is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Union College in Schenectady, NY. He blogs about physics, life in academia, ephemeral pop culture, and anything else that catches his fancy.
Backreaction: Women in Physics
"I was invited to the upcoming APS meeting in Denver to speak in a session on "Women and Minorities in Gravity: Science and Career Paths." And since I have somewhat of a bad conscience for never having been at never any APS meeting, not to mention never having been…
Today is Easter, for those who celebrate it, and the end of Cadbury Egg season for those who don't. SteelyKid's grandparents and great-grandmother are coming to visit, because it's been weeks since they saw her cuteness in person. And that means minimal blogging today.
Religious connotations aside…
When the Martian Winds Blow... : Starts With A Bang
"Opportunity is headed towards Endeavour Crater (above), and this power boost may shorten its trip by months. This would be the largest crater ever explored by a rover on Mars, and we may yet get to see it, all because of a gust of wind!"
(tags…
...what with his wife, Emily, giving birth to twins. It sounds like he's pretty happy with this state of affairs, though.
Go leave him a congratulatory comment. Or, better yet, go buy one of his books-- they're great fun for you to read, and will help keep Toby supplied with the vast number of…
How hostage negotiations work. - By Christopher Beam - Slate Magazine
"What, exactly, does a hostage negotiator do?
Wear down the captors. Negotiating strategies vary depending on the demands, the time of day, the hostage-taker's sanity, and a million other factors. (For example, you might want…
My bedtime reading last night was an old pop-science book by Isaac Asimov, about black holes and astronomy generally. He talks at some length about the size and age of the universe, and just before I stopped and went to sleep last night, I reached his discussion of Cepheid variables, which begins…
Over at the Intersection's new digs, Sheril has posted a rather long list of fellowship programs for people interested in science policy. Sponsors include government agencies, private universities, professional societies, and private foundations, and cover pretty much every branch of science. If…
Why was Jesus crucified? - By Larry Hurtado - Slate Magazine
"A central statement in traditional Christian creeds is that Jesus was crucified "under Pontius Pilate." But the majority of Christians have only the vaguest sense what the phrase represents, and most non-Christians probably can't…
Sabine Hossenfelder from Backreaction has landed a job as an assistant professor at NORDITA. That's good news any time, but especially in the current climate.
And going Sabine one better, Mary at View from the Corner has both defended her thesis and gotten a job at the same company as her husband.…
Why is this night different from other nights?
Because day care at the Jewish Community Center was closed for Passover, and SteelyKid spent the day at work with Kate, of course. And after a long day of baby lawyering, it's good to relax with a drink:
SteelyKid here shows off that she can hold her…
I spent most of yesterday huddled under a pile of blankets on the couch-- being feverish and light-headed is great if you're in a Pink Floyd song, but not so much if you're trying to be a functioning adult. It seems to be the Thing That's Going Around this term, though, and while I'm feeling better…
The physics of why bicyclists hate stop signs - Hard Drive
"In their essay "Why Bicyclists Hate Stop Signs," University of California physics professor Joel Fajans and Access transportation journal editor Melanie Curry write that requiring cyclists to follow the same complete-stop rules as…
New ScienceBlogger and American Gladiator Ethan Siegel of Starts With a Bang has a couple of nice posts about dark matter and how we know it's there (one, two).
These posts reminded me that I never did follow up on the discussion following my post about Magic World Media, who are looking to…
Brigham Young U.'s Student Newspaper Is Pulled After Embarrassing Typo - Chronicle.com
"The caption described a photograph illustrating the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saintsâ General Conference, and it referred to the groupâs âQuorum of Twelve Apostatesâ rather than âApostles.â…
Between the sleep deprivation caused by being home alone with the baby, and the new Jim Butcher book, I realized that I almost forgot to mention North Carolina's defeat of Michigan State for the NCAA basketball championship. I'm glad to see it for two reasons: their victory let me win two of the…
Via Matt Yglesias, a new CBS/ New York Times Poll has been released, accompanied by quite possibly the stupidest graphics ever. The pseudo-pie-chart at right is one of three, all of which have the same glaring flaw as this one.
Somebody really ought to lose their job for this. There's just no…
SteelyKid is eight months old today, and to celebrate... Kate went down to the City for an oral argument. So, SteelyKid and I had our first night at home without Mommy. Fortunately, there was a basketball game last night, and she slept peacefully on my lap through the whole game.
I did cop out a…
After North Carolina, Hansbrough Faces a Skeptical N.B.A. - NYTimes.com
âYou guys make it out like I just came back to school just to win a national championship,â Hansbrough said. âI came back to school because I enjoy college.â
(tags: academia sports basketball)
Over at the First Excited State, the quasi-anonymous proprietor laments the tendency of basketball replays to focus on the shot rather than the play that set up the shot, and compares this to a maddening student habit:
Students in introductory physics classes inevitably place too much focus on the…
Cocktail Party Physics: brew masters
"I seem to have collected an impressive array of items on various science-y aspects of beer, which forms the topic of today's monster post. Benjamin Franklin once observed, "Beer is living proof that God wants us to be happy," and we're all about sharing the…
peake: What you won't read
"Nevertheless, just possibly because of my own slight interest in the outcome, I have been following the responses to this yearâs shortlists [for the Hugo and other SF awards] rather more intently than I might otherwise. And I have been struck by a number of…
The monthly Sigma Xi email newsletter for April included a link to Magic World Media, a new company producing children's books about science:
Magic World Media was founded in 2008 by scientists in order to offer children a view into the mysterious ways of life and the universe through books and…
Over at his new digs, Chris Mooney talks about efforts to re-launch the OTA:
I’m starting to detect some buzz on this very important front, which I wrote about in detail in 2005’s The Republican War on Science and elsewhere. Basically, the story is this: In 1995 the Gingrich Republicans, looking to…
â¦My heartâs in Accra » From protest to collaboration: Paul Simonâs âGracelandâ and lessons for xenophiles
A great post about one of the most successful cultural appropriations ever.
(tags: politics culture music history world zuckerman)
Career Advice: Check It Out by Checking It Off - Inside…
In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, we instituted a complicated emergency alert system, involving sirens, loudspeakers, text messages, and emails. The whole thing gets tested far more frequently than it really needs to-- every few weeks, we get a barrage of emails warning us that a test is…
My friend Paul, this blog's Official Middle East Correspondent, and his wife, Helen, just had a baby, which they (well, he) announced to the world via the new tradition of changing his Facebook status message. Paul, Helen, and baby Ray are all healthy and unironically happy, so congratulations to…
Shhhh! Stop reading so loudly! You'll wake the baby:
It's been a while since we had a sleeping baby picture of the week, and conveniently enough, SteelyKid slept late this morning. So there you go.
Why Advertising Is Failing On The Internet
"My basic premise is that the internet is not replacing advertising but shattering it, and all the kingâs horses, all the kingâs men, and all the creative talent of Madison Avenue cannot put it together again."
(tags: economics society culture internet…
Physics World this month has a nice article by Robert Crease on the strategies used in popular physics books, drawing on a study of popular books by Elizabeth Leane (Reading Popular Physics, much of which is available via Google Books). He talks about three different strategies that she identifies…
The spring round of the Adopt-a-Physicist outreach program will begin soon. I did this in the Fall, and it was a good experience, so I've registered myself again.
The program pairs volunteer physicists with high school classes, and provides a web forum in which students can ask questions about…
