What’s So Interesting About Extreme Lasers?

The second in the DAMOP research categories I talked about is “Extreme Lasers,” a name I was somewhat hesitant to use, as every time I see “Extreme [noun],” I get a flash of Stephen Colbert doing air guitar. It is, however, the appropriate term, because these laser systems push the limits of what’s possible both […]

Links for 2011-06-30

YouTube – ‪Wits with Neil Gaiman, Adam Savage, and Gollum: “I Will Survive”‬‏ The Internet is a very, very strange place. (tags: silly internet video music movies television) Confessions of a Community College Dean: Yes, College is Worth It “One way to test the truth of the proposition that college isn’t worth it is to […]

What’s So Interesting About Ultracold Matter?

The first of the five categories of active research at DAMOP that I described in yesterday’s post is “Ultracold Matter.” The starting point for this category of research is laser cooling to get a gas of atoms down to microkelvin temperatures (that is, a few millionths of a degree above absolute zero. Evaporative cooling can […]

Links for 2011-06-29

Chuck Klosterman on Led Zeppelin’s last stand – Grantland “4:52 to 5:24: brrrrrrringgggggg … brrrrrrrrrringggggggg “Hello?” “Hi. Is this John Paul Jones?” “Yes. Yes it is. Why are you calling me in the middle of this song?” “I just noticed you had a telephone on your keyboard, so I thought I’d give you a buzz. […]

What’s So Interesting About AMO Physics?

That’s the title of my slightly insane talk at the DAMOP (Division of Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics of the American Physical Society) conference a couple of weeks ago, summarizing current topics of interest in Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics. I’ll re-embed the slides at the end of this post, for anyone who missed my […]

Links for 2011-06-28

But it doesn’t move! | The Renaissance Mathematicus “All in all to believe in heliocentricity at the beginning of the 17th century was literally an act of blind faith and those that opposed it did so on solid scientific grounds and not purely out of some sense of religious bigotry as is often claimed by […]

SteelyKid at the Zoo

On Saturday, we took SteelyKid to the Bronx Zoo. It was kind of hot, and she got a little over-tired by the end, but it had a lot of amazingly cute moments, too. And, unlike Sunday’s trip to the beach, I brought my camera and shot a couple hundred pictures of various things. Including this […]

Even Bad Guys Have Good Ideas

We spent Sunday morning introducing SteelyKid to one of my favorite places in the world, Jones Beach on Long Island. She was ok with the water until an unexpected wave sideswiped us and splashed her in the face, but enjoyed the sand quite a bit. And I got to swim in the ocean and body-surf […]