Kate and I went down to New York City (sans kids, as my parents were good enough to take SteelyKid and The Pip for the weekend) this weekend, because Kate had a case to argue this morning, and I needed a getaway before the start of classes today. We hit the Rubin Museum of Art, […]
Category: Silliness
Conceptual Physics Costumes for Halloween
For various reasons I can’t talk about, I’m not in a good mental place for deep and thoughtful blogging just at the moment. But prompted by yesterday’s Surviving the World, I’ll revisit a past post topic, and suggest some abstract ideas you could dress as for Halloween, if you’re so inclined. The Doppler Effect: Wear […]
Still Stuck in Paragraph Two
This one’s for Matthew Francis, whose tweet from yesterday lodged this in my head until I broke down and typed it out. With apologies to Stealer’s Wheel and their Dylanesque pop bubblegum classic: Still Stuck in Paragraph Two Well, I don’t know why I came here tonight, I brought the laptop but still just can’t […]
How to Teach Relativity to Your Four-Year Old
SCENE: The library at Chateau Steelypips. DADDY is typing on the computer, while THE PIP plays on the floor. Enter STEELYKID. STEELYKID: I’m already four years old. DADDY: Yes, yes you are. THE PIP: Thbbbbbbbpppt! STEELYKID: How old is The Pip? DADDY: Eleven months. Not quite one year. STEELYKID: When The Pip is four, how […]
The Perfection of Bay Area Dogphysics
Last night, as I was flying in to San Francisco, Matt Cain pitched the first perfect game in Giants history. Now, a casual observer might think these events were unrelated, but to ancient alien theorists, the connection between them could not be more obvious. Thus, you should come to Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park this […]
Green Speckled Frogs
In which we look at the very latest in amphibian science. ———— The embedded video shows one Prof. S. Kid describing her latest observations in detail. It’s a very comprehensive study.
Ask Emmy Questions
The blog is recovering from the transition to WordPress, but I’m still not fully confident in it. So We’ll turn to another corner of the social media universe for my procrastinatory needs this morning: Having Emmy answer physics questions on Twitter. The same deal as when we’ve done this before: If you’ve got a physics […]
It’s Organic Pixie Dust, from Fair-Trade Pixies
SteelyKid: Daddy, would you like to go to visit Jake and the Never Land Pirates? Me:: In principle, sure. But it’s a cartoon. We can’t go there, it’s not a real place. SteelyKid: Yes it is. Never Land is real, we can go there. Me: Well, look, if you find some pixies dust that we […]
Musical Poll: Lyrical Crimes
I’m killing time waiting for something I can’t talk about yet, so here’s a silly poll to pass the time, brought to you by a couple of songs served up on the radio this morning while I was running errands: Which of these awkward song lyrics is the worst lyrical crime against English grammar? I […]
The Story of the One Little Pig, the Nice Wolf, and Materials Science
I want a story. The story about one little pig, and the wolf. I’ll need you to help me with it, OK? Yeah. OK, once upon a time, there was one little pig, and he… What did he do? He built a house out of straw. Right. He was a little bit silly, so he […]