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.
Hold Steady rocks for the lucky few -- Page 1 -- Times Union - Albany NY
"The Hold Steady's Tuesday night performance at Valentine's was sold-out weeks in advance of the show, which left a lot of mopers without a ticket or a hope of getting in.
Those who'd jumped on the chance early on, though,…
Because a book isn't a real book until it has a promotional website, I give you:
http://dogphysics.com
the official(ish) site for promoting How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, which will be published this December (and can be pre-ordered on Amazon).
The site does, in fact, contain content you won't…
Everything I've read about the Hold Steady says that they're a great bar band, which always seems a little improbable. I mean, the songs are complicated, with tons of words and odd subject matter ("I dig those awkward silences, 'cause I grew up in denial, and I went to school in Massachusetts"),…
Setshot: Basketball for the Aging and Infirm: "Worse than he thinks": Self-image versus ability
"To me, the worst players to run with (aside from the belligerent and insane) are those with drastically inflated self-images. You know these players. They're the ones who think that they're the best…
This is the final report on my modern physics class from last term, covering the last week of classes, which generally deal with nuclear and particle physics. This was actually three-and-a-bit classes, because I lost one class to a nasty cold a few weeks earlier, and used part of the lab period to…
In the last course report post, we dispensed of atomic and molecular physics in just three classes. The next three classes do the same for solid state physics.
Class 25 picks up on the idea of basic molecular potentials from the end of the previous class, and uses that to introduce energy bands in…
I got way behind on my reports from my Modern Physics class-- the last one was over month ago, and the class has since ended. There's enough material left to be really awkward as a single post, though, so I'm going to take my cue from Brandon Sanderson and split it into three parts.
The remaining…
Today is the first day of Spring term classes, which means there's one obvious question to ask:
What am I forgetting?
I've spent the last few days alternating baby duty with frantic class prep, and I think I've got everything ready. I'm bound to be forgetting something, though. So what is it? What…
Last week, the more annoying yelling heads on ESPN and its affiliates were all making a big show of brushing off the complaints of NCAA fans who felt the tournament was missing something due to the lack of a "Cinderella" team from a small conference making it to the round of 16. This was just…
The Washington Monthly
"I wonder why people are so angry about bonuses. Do they hate the rich? Do they want to punish success?Are they eaten up inside with resentment? Do they just not want to admit that some people work harder and are more talented than they are?
Or could it be one too many…
I'm putting the finishing touches on Monday's lecture notes when the dog comes into the library, looking concerned.
"Shouldn't I be doing something to promote the book?" she asks.
"Since it won't be out for another nine months, I don't think it's that urgent."
"But aren't there more Internetty…
I was rather surprised when Friday's quick post about Tolkien spawned a lengthy comment thread full of people arguing against the suggestion that The Lord of the Rings is affected by Tolkien's Catholic faith. I'm no Tolkien scholar, but my impression of the field is that this is simply not a…
Optics basics: Youngâs double slit experiment « Skulls in the Stars
"As Iâve so far been restricting my âoptics basicsâ posts to discussions of fundamental concepts related to optics, it might seem strange at first glance to dedicate a post to a single optical experiment. What will hopefully…
Twenty-five-ish years ago, my father and I went on a fishing trip in the Florida Keys with a very dear friend of the family, who had been going their for years. I've written about him before, because he had a severe case of polio shortly before Salk's vaccine was developed, and needed a good deal…
SteelyKid has developed a bunch of new skills recently, which she shows off in this video of her sitting up like a big girl, and pulling toys out of her shape sorter box:
(Thanks to Ewan and Jenny for the shape sorter box, by the way. It's pretty much the ultimate dog toy (a selection of small…
The Washington Monthly
"All of that's changing, slowly but surely. The GOP lock on evangelicals is loosening. Poverty and global warming are just as serious for many younger evangelicals as whether two consenting adults of the same gender can get married.
And Pat Robertson's Regent University has…
Arts & Letters Daily had a link to a City Journal article about religious symbolism in science fiction, which attempts to claim that there has been a recent swing toward Christian symbolism in the genre (at least, in movie and television SF-- the only books mentioned are forty-ish years old).…
OK, "quiz" isn't really the right word, because I don't know the right answer. But here's something weird that I noticed a while ago, and since I needed an excuse to fool around with video a bit, I thought I'd shoot some pictures of it:
Here's the deal: My cell phone is gently curved on one side.…
The Tuguska event of 1908 is one of the most frequently "explained" events in recent history, trailing only the Kennedy assassination. The arXiv blog reports on the latest explanation of what knocked down all those trees without making a giant crater:
Now a new analysis by Edward Drobyshevski of…
Jets Attempt To Trade Mannequin Dressed As Favre For Jay Cutler | The Onion - America's Finest News Source
"The Jets refuse to drop their offer and have sweetened it with the addition of a dog in a Jerricho Cotchery jersey."
(tags: silly football sports onion)
Kung Fu Monkey: Ephemera 2009 (7…
Tonight on Thursday Night Wrestling: SteelyKid versus Sky Bison!
Roar! Roar! ROAR!
SteelyKid wins!
(Apologies to Bob Shea of Dinosaur vs. Bedtime...)
Special bonus roaring: Bob Shea on YouTube:
As a scientist with a blog, I am apparently contractually obligated to link to the New York Times Magazine profile of Freeman Dyson. If I don't, they'll take away my privileges as a scientist. (Of course, since those consist mostly of the right to review grant applications for the NSF, maybe it'd…
I'm teaching the intro mechanics course next term, starting on Monday, and my colleagues who just finished teaching it in the Winter term used WebAssign to handle most of the homework. They speak very highly of it, so I'm probably going to use it next term.
I'm curious to know what other people…
A few days ago I asked people's opinions regarding drop deadlines for students who decide they no longer want to be in a class. As usual, I forgot a few qualifiers, and nobody used the categories I gave, but after sorting the answers into roughly the categories I gave, here are the results:
A drop…
Step away from the curve § Unqualified Offerings
"The ideal curve would have a mean of about 50%. If itâs too much above 50%, then most of what youâre putting on there is easy for everyone, so it should just be a given. If itâs too far below 50%, then most of what youâre putting on there is too…
The Female Science Professor had a nice post about working with someone who was afraid to write a paper:
Out of desperation, I told the graphophobe to meet me at a particular cafe at a particular time, with the latest draft of the manuscript and whatever other notes or references he needed. We met…
I fell behind on course reports from my modern physics class a few weeks back, but I do mean to get back to them, when I have more time. The material remaining is the end-of-term sprint through a bunch of topics in modern physics-- three classes on atoms and molecules, three classes on solid state…
Hulu - Cosmos
All 13 episodes of Carl Sagan's landmark series. Because if you're going to watch video on your work computer, it might as well be something good.
(tags: science astronomy television space video)
Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / Humorous Humanist Armageddon:…
Steve calls me out for not commenting on new stories about "cold fusion":
Becky and I have been having much more regular access to the internet since the power was fixed. We check e-mail just about everyday and can even skim yahoo news. Or Professor Orzel's blog. I heard on BBC radio yesterday that…
One of the NCAA pools I'm in has a copy of Obama's bracket entered, and the last I checked, I'm a couple of games up on him. This means I'm as qualified as anyone else to offer a plan to fix the financial crisis, and I have just the plan we need.
On the question of the AIG bonuses, I'm pretty much…
