Born in America, he’s a humble whiz kid with a penchant for physics and computers and a knack for whipping up miracles in a laboratory. His only crime this day was the apparent misfortune of being born brown-skinned. To be fair, all he wanted to do was pump gas. This was […]
Life
490 posts
This summer was not only for physics research and astronomy teaching. I was also focused on a personal goal: fitness and weight-loss. My goal was to get below 190lbs this past summer. Given that I began this goal after a slight uptick in weight in the Spring, from 200lbs to […]
I am a scientist. Normally, I would turn to evidence to debunk a claim. But sometime the lie is so big… so deep… so fundamentally wrong… that only a story of faith can counter its power. Presumptive Republican U.S. Presidential Candidate Donald Trump comes to the U.S. Evangelical Christian as […]
On January 12, 2012, I weighed 248lbs. That was the heaviest I’d ever been in my life, and up to this date the good news is that it is still the heaviest I’ve ever been in my life. Back then I had knee pain. I had high blood pressure. I […]
This was an incredible week, not because of anything that happened specifically to me but because of what happened for all humankind. At SMU, we were visited by Prof. Tony Gherghetta from the University of Minnesota who gave a fantastic seminar at SMU on the subject of composite theories of […]
Last week was a whirlwind of a week. I attended an awards banquet on Tuesday night for professors nominated for the SMU Honoring Our Professors’ Excellence awards, only to then have it revealed I had also been selected for a more significant honor. I delivered my Godbey Lecture on Thursday to […]
This week was a busy one. My introductory physics course is rolling along and so is Honors Physics, whose membership suddenly swelled. Jodi traveled to Washington D.C. for an American Physical Society leadership event, and I guest-lectured for her Modern Physics class. There were lots of meetings and a fair […]
This was the best start to a semester that I have had in a long time. My first day of class was Tuesday, and my course has hit a major milestone this semester. My ATLAS colleagues and I are making excellent progress on analysis work and a conference note for […]
Tornadoes, thunderstorms and heavy rains, floods, and a blizzard. And we’re not even there yet. Some observations on our northbound new year’s travel to see family in Wisconsin, with some photos. This has been a tour of the damage wrought by arctic air combining with the force of the El […]
In many ways, this was a remarkable semester. I thought it would be nice to reflect on the last few weeks of it before I settle in for a long winter’s nap… or, at least, a long Christmas nap. The end of this semester saw the wrap of the Honors […]
Some photos from a walk near The Old Stone Dam. I hadn’t been to it yet, and it was as lovely as Jodi told it me it would be.
Every year, Jodi and I run a local Halloween-themed 5K race together. Recently, the race became a charity for an organization that tries to help children and their families deal with particular cancers. It’s nice that the race goes to support a good cause; to be honest, I don’t run […]