No More Mister Nice Blog The paranoia of George Zimmerman had a large, race-specific fear component, but I’d say it also had elements of pleasure. I see this in what gun fans say all the time — they like thinking of themselves as besieged, and as people who have the means to defend themselves if […]
Month: March 2012
Quantum Musical Interlude
The title says it all: an animated video of Heisenberg singing about the Uncertainty Principle: So, you know, there’s that. It’s pretty good, but he’s no Feynman:
Treating Big Molecules Like Electrons: “Real-time single-molecule imaging of quantum interference”
Richard Feyman famously once said that the double-slit experiment done with electrons contains everything that’s “‘at the heart of quantum physics.” It shows both particle and wave character very clearly: the individual electrons are detected one at a time, like particles, but the result of a huge number of detections clearly traces out an interference […]
Links for 2012-03-26
Tutorial and Critique Services — Debra Doyle, Ph.D. Now-a-days, lots of folks are self-publishing. I’m doing it myself. If you’re planning to self-publish, and if you haven’t yet heard the advice that since you’re now a publisher you need to hire an editor, well, you will. Other folks want to learn to write. A one-on-one […]
Science Fantastic, Sales by SteelyKid
I had a signing yesterday at the Barnes & Noble in Vestal, NY, which drew a smallish crowd mostly of friends and family. SteelyKid came, of course, and while she spent most of her time bopping about other parts of the store, she came over to the signing area while I was signing books for […]
Scientific Commuting: Some Answers to “How Much Faster?”
So, the previous post poses a physics question based on some previous fooling around with modeling my commute: A car starts from rest at the beginning of a straight 1km course, accelerates up to some speed, cruises at constant speed for a while, then decelerates to a stop at the end of the course. A […]
Scientific Commuting: How Much Faster?
Back in the summer, I did a post mathematically comparing two routes to campus, one with a small number of traffic lights, the other with a larger number of stop signs, and looked at which would be faster. Later on, I did the experiment, too.) Having spent a bunch of time on this, I was […]
How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog On the Radio and in Vestal, NY
The quick publicity items for this weekend: 1) I will be on the Science Fantastic radio show either Saturday or Sunday, depending on when your local affiliate runs it (or when you choose to livestream it over the Internet). The interview has already been recorded, which leaves me free for: 2) I will be signing […]
Links for 2012-03-23
Not To Us, And To Us | Storied Theology “Not to us” is an important step in biblical interpretation. We need to have ears to hear how a story would have resonated with Babylonian exiles; we need ears to hear how “Jesus is Lord” might have resonated, or caused dissonance, for a first century Roman. […]
How to Have My Dog Teach You Physics
“Hey, dude,” the dog says, looking concerned. “We need to talk.” “Yeah? What’s up?” “Look, it’s great that you’re transcribing the human puppy’s stories into Twitter and all, but I’m feeling left out. I’ve got my own Twitter account and all, but you hardly ever type any of my tweets any more. I have to […]