It’s been a while since I’ve jotted any thoughts on my research. Although I promised myself no physics after 5 pm on Friday’s, I figured **writing** about physics is maybe somewhat exempt from that pledge. Besides, I get thoughtful when it gets late. The Value of the RareI’ve spent the […]
Physics
257 posts
I was recently witness to the kind of modern slight against women in physics that reminds me that while we’ve all come a long was as a field, we have a mighty long way to go to achieve mutual respect. Without going into details, or naming names, the incident can […]
“Marketplace”, a daily show about money, the economy, and the intermingling of business and personal lives, presented a short piece on how the desire for a life of academic pursuit, and the desire for a life together with another, can come into conflict. On tonight’s program, reporter Jane Lyndholm presented […]
I’ve been running pretty silent again lately. It’s not like interesting things have stopped happening in the world. About a third of the Republican presidential candidates still don’t believe in evolution, the basis of progress in the entire modern medical and social fabrics of our world (good luck on real […]
Well, we finally did it. After making some intro/outro music on Apple’s GarageBand, sitting down at the kitchen table, and talking into a microphone, Jodi and I have finally made our first podcast. You can get it from: http://twobodyproblem.cooleysekula.net/ You can subscribe (using Amarok, iTunes, or a similar program), get […]
Last week, I had the great pleasure of attending “The Hunt for Dark Matter”, a symposium at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Dark matter hunters, and even a skeptic or two, converged from across the world at Fermilab to discuss the current state-of-the-art in detection, the hopes for future experiments, and […]
Jodi and I went to see “Spiderman 3” tonight. What really struck me about the movie is the level to which physics sneaks into the film. Quite apart from the fact that Spiderman largely respects the laws of gravity (he uses falling and redirection of momentum to move about, and […]
A scientist is a pie (no, wait – this is going someplace). Like a pie, a scientist’s job is to be eaten. Different people want different sized slices. Some people want you to spend your time on a research project. Other people want you to spend your time on service […]
What a week. You go from Jacksonville, straight back into the mad rush ahead of the summer conference cycle. What rough beast slouches toward South Korea? Well, that’d be the Lepton-Photon conference (for which we’re all rushing to get ready)! While I jump back into the constant fray of my […]
This APS brought a few interesting lessons. When you commit to an experiment, follow it through and ignore outside pressure to release results before you’re ready. Mingle with your superiors, and mingle with your peers. Spending $130 per night on a hotel room for a physics conference is not justified, […]
Excellent science is going on to understand the dark ages of the universe. Using things like arrays of cheap TV antennae in China, or dipoles in western Australia, astronomers are trying to image the time when the universe was dominated by neutral hydrogen. 21 cm waves – the TV band […]
Earlier today, I had the pleasure of watching two presentations from the MiniBooNE collaboration on their recently released results. The first was by Eric Zimmerman, with whom I’ve worked on Washington lobbying efforts, and the other was by Heather Ray. Heather’s talk was of most interest to me, as it […]