Physics
drorzel | July 29, 2006The Department of Physics and Astronomy at Union College invites applications for a tenure-track assistant professor position starting in September 2007. The position is open with respect to research specialization and candidates with an active research program in any area of physics or astronomy are invited to apply. A Ph.D. in physics or a closely related field is required, and post-doctoral experience is desirable. The successful candidate will have a strong commitment to undergraduate education in a liberal arts setting and the ability to actively engage undergraduates in research.…
drorzel | July 28, 2006The prolific Bora at A Blog Around the Clock is looking for the rock stars of science, as part of a long chain of people picking up this quote from Morgan Spurlock:
We've started to make science and empirical evidence not nearly as important as punditry--people wusing p.r.-speak to push a corporate or political agenda. I think we need to turn scientists back into the rock stars they are.
In physics, we're ahead of the game, already having two actual rock stars working in the field. And how do you count the Hong Kong Cavaliers?
Then again, maybe they're looking for a serious answer... (Below…
drorzel | July 25, 2006Well, the extremely dorky poll on favorite fundamental constants seems to have petered out at 48 comments, two short of the threshold at which it would've become non-dorky. Still, that was a good effort.
Since that worked pretty well, here's another dorky poll question: What's your favorite fundamental particle? And, for the sake of concreteness, let's stick to particles that have actually been shown to exist-- the six quarks (up, down, strange, charm, bottom, top), six leptons (electron, muon, tau, electron neutrino, muon neutrino, tau neutrino), massive force carrying bosons (W and Z), and…
drorzel | July 25, 2006Via Inside Higher Ed, the National Research Council (a part of the National Academy of Sciences) has released a new report calling for a renewed federal committment to AMO science. AMO here meaning "Atomic, Molecular, and Optical," namely the sort of physics I do.
The federal government should reinforce its commitment to research in atomic, molecular, and optical (AMO) science -- the study of atoms, molecules, and light, and related technologies such as lasers and fiber-optic communications -- says a new report from the National Academies' National Research Council. The report, which…
drorzel | July 24, 2006As promised in the previous post, some thoughts on superstition in science. This was originally posted in October 2004, and astute readers may note that my opening comments about sports went horribly awry not long after. I take this as proof of my point: talking about these things only screws them up.
Long-time readers of this site may have noticed a lack of sport-related posts in recent weeks, despite the fact that my teams are doing pretty well at the moment. This is not really a coincidence-- I'm as surprised as anyone to see the Giants winning games (though you will note that they lost to…
drorzel | July 20, 2006In the previous post, I said that the fine structure constant alpha provides us with a way to measure whether the fundamental constants making it up (the electron charge, Planck's constant, and the speed of light) have changed in the last few billion years. How, exactly, does that work?
The easiest way to see how the fine structure constant leaves a signature that can be detected millions or billions of years later is to think about its effect on atomic states. In the picture where you think of it as describing the ratio of the speed of an orbiting electron to the speed of light, it's easy to…
drorzel | July 20, 2006As noted yesterday, someone going by "who" (who may or may not be a doctor) took me to task in the comments to the dorky poll for talking about fundamental constants that have units, preferring dimensionless ratios instead:
I would be really interested to hear what your readers come up with if the popularity constest was about DIMENSIONLESS physical constants----which are significant RATIOS built into the universe. Like the ratio of mass of proton to mass of electron, or the ratio of Planck mass to proton mass.
these are things you can't simply make become = 1 and in effect "go away" merely…
drorzel | July 19, 2006I was planning to write a big, long post tying together Nathan's mention of an ICAP talk on the time-variation of fundamental constants with Rob Knop's post on same and this comment regarding the dorky poll (still time to vote!) and a conversation I had with Kate about the meaning of the fine structure constant. It was going to be genius, I tell you.
But, my monitor died this morning, and while I replaced it with the old CRT we had lying around, the delay cut into my blogging time enough that the post didn't get written. So, it'll wait for tomorrow.
While you're waiting, you can read the…
drorzel | July 18, 2006The article about physicists in movies cited previously had one other thing worth commenting on: the fictional portrayal of the practice of science:
All these films illustrate a fundamental pattern for movie science. Rarely is the central scientific concept utterly incorrect, but filmmakers are obviously more interested in creating entertaining stories that sell tickets than in presenting a lesson in elementary physics. They also know that scenes of scientists at a lab bench do not generally make for gripping movie moments. Indeed, the need for drama often pushes the basic scientific idea to…
drorzel | July 18, 2006Benjamin Cohen at The World's Fair posts a link to an article about physicists in movies. The author provides a surprisingly detailed breakdown of what must be every character described as a physicist in the history of motion pictures. He also says really nasty things about What the Bleep Do We Know?, which warms my heart.
In the "elsewhere on the web" list at the bottom of the article, they mention the Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics site, which was the subject of the fourth post ever on Uncertain Principles. Which is all the excuse I need for some Classic Edition blogging-- the original…
drorzel | July 17, 2006This past weekend, Union played host to the New York State Association for College Admissions Counseling's Camp College program. This is a three-day summer program where students from disadvantaged backgrounds (the vast majority of this year's students were from New York City, with a handful of local students, and one group from Philly) spend a weekend on a college campus, sleeping in the dorms, eating in the dining halls, and attending simulated classes. The classes are taught by faculty memebers recruited from the host institutions-- I did a lecture for them a few years back, in the early…
drorzel | July 17, 2006It's not as sexy as Strings 2006, but it's easier to understand what the talks are about: Nathan Lundblad is blogging from the International Conference on Atomic Physics in Innsbruck, Austria (the bastard). Posts so far:
First day introduction.
First day talk recaps.
(The latter includes the announcement of the [Norman] Ramsey Prize, "to be given to the first credible measurement of a nonzero electron EDM, with the caveat that it be done in his lifetime." For those not in the field, Ramsey is 91, so that's an important caveat...)
Now that I've plugged this, Nathan will no doubt crumble under…
drorzel | July 16, 2006
In the lecture hall yesterday, from left to right: A dewar of liquid nitrogen, a tube of racquetballs, a squeaky dog toy, a handful of yellow balloons, a vase of flowers, an inflated red balloon, an insulated glove, and a 4-liter jug of liquid nitrogen.
The dewars, the vase, the glove, and the dog toy survived the day.
More details, and video, tomorrow.
drorzel | July 16, 2006Slow blogging this weekend, as yesterday was taken up with activities that will be blogged about later. Today promises to be a sticky and unpleasant day outside, so I'll probably end up doing a lot of blogging in my nice, comfortable, air-conditioned home office. Of course, there's not much point in posting lots of stuff on a Sunday, so I'll probably just schedule posts for later in the week. But, you know, that's something to look forward to. Or something.
If you'd like a way to pass the time, Scott Aaronson has announced a Best Anthropicism Contest, to see who can come up with the best…
drorzel | July 14, 2006I was scheduled for a deeply unpleasant medical test yesterday, which I thought was going to leave me lots of time for blogging. yesterday afternoon and this morning. The preliminary test turned out to be so unpleasant (if anybody ever offers to stick a tube through your nose into your stomach, decline politely) that I didn't go through with the test, and, in fact, was kind of wiped out all last night. Hence, yesterday's light blogging, and today's lazy blogging.
One of the controversial things that China Miéville said on the Readercon panels I went to was to sort of dismiss the whole idea…
drorzel | July 13, 2006Over at Backreaction, Bee has posted a fairly readable introduction to extra dimensions, including a sort of taxonomy of different models. If you're interested in that sort of thing, take a look.
It almost makes up for the dreadful visual pun from a little while back.
(There's other good stuff there, including a list of stupid paper titles, and a review of Peter Woit's book. There are worse ways to kill time than spending a few minutes poking around that blog.)
drorzel | July 12, 2006An off-hand comment in my RHIC post has provided a lot more traffic and entertainment than I would've thought possible, and has also accidentally re-confirmed what we used to call "Furr's Law" back in my Usenet days-- namely, that the fastest way to get information on the Internet is to say something wrong, and let people rush to correct you. (Please note, I'm not saying I deliberately slighted string theory in order to discover RHIC resources-- I deliberately slighted string theory for the sake of a (not terribly effective) joke.)
Anyway, the responses have provided a wealth of String Theory…
scientificactivist | July 10, 2006As you may have seen, the web is all abuzz today with news and commentary on the 150th birthday of the scientists and inventor Nikola Tesla. Tesla is probably best known as the inventor of the modern radio, but he had his hands in almost every area of electronics and magnetism research in his day. Because of his many inventions in the area, he is often called "the man who invented the Twentieth Century", a title that is surely well-deserved. His presence has seemed to only grow stronger with time, and even today his memory is allowing Serbia and Croatia to look past their uneasy past and…
drorzel | July 10, 2006Rob Knop offers a nice discussion of the speed of light, in response to last night's question. This post is not about that, though you should go read it.
This post is about my odd reaction to Rob's title: "'Speed of Light' : a bad name for a great fundamental constant?" The notion of a "great fundamental constant" sort of suggests the possiblity of a not-great fundamental constant. Which leads to the extremely dorky poll questions:
What is your favorite fundamental constant?
What is your least favorite fundamental constant?
Post your answers in the comments (I'm too lazy to set up clicky-…
drorzel | July 9, 2006I was away at Readercon this weekend, which meant a fair amount of hanging out in a hotel bar socializing with writer types. One of whom was working on a novel that will have some hard-science elements to it, and had been looking for a physicist to ask questions of. Having just sat down, and being well supplied with beer, I offered to give it a shot.
Unfortunately, the first question she asked was (paraphrasing slightly, as I was well supplied with beer):
Is the speed of light a property of space-time, or a property of light?
I still don't quite know what to do with that one. Further…