The conference, Rencontres de Blois, takes place annually in the Chateau de Blois. This year was the 30th anniversary of the conference and the 31st such edition of the conference. The conference is a synthesis of particle physics, astrophysics, and cosmology – a perfect match to the strengths of our […]
Physics
263 posts
Any person with a minimum sufficient experience in life has been rewarded with failure. A subset of those people, with sufficient practice, will come to recognize failure, not as a friend, but as a teacher. A recent useful (and ultimately harmless) failure in my class became a key teaching moment, […]
By my own recollection, it was the spring of my second year in college. I was a sophomore who had stumbled in my physics and math classes at Yale. I had tasted what it was to no longer be the best student in your classes, and it was hard to […]
We could see the bottom of the whirlpool all black with sand and mud, and the men were at their wit’s ends for fear. Homer, “The Odyssey”, Book XII In our book, “Reality in the Shadows,” Jim Gates, Frank Blitzer and I revisit the first time human set eyes on […]
The Voyager probe looks back on our planet, so many decades ago. Our whole civilization, and all the wonders and terrors it has wrought, clinging to a pale blue ornament that hangs, lit by its parent star, nearly alone in the void.
I woke up a little late this morning. I wanted to be up at 4:30am. It was 4:40 when I realized the alarm I had set the night before was going off, and I pulled myself out of bed. Jodi was already up, working on her class prep for the […]
I found myself recently standing on the shores of Lake Michigan, reflecting on the connections between these human spaces and the most vast spaces of the cosmic shores. The lighthouse on Cana Island in Door County, Wisconsin stands on the shores of Lake Michigan. At a height of 87 feet, […]
I’ve decided to use my blog to reflect on my summer research activities as they unfold. I find such reflection not only useful for thinking about what is accomplished and what is not, but also to communicate to an audience some of the aspects of the research life of a […]
In our book, “Reality in the Shadows,” we devote an entire chapter to the phenomenon of the black hole (“A Shadow Where No Light Shines“). We dealt in things that are known – for instance, that black holes exist and that they can be detected using their effects on the […]
Sometimes, scientific fields move fast. They move so fast, even three authors working with a really responsive and excellent publisher who has fully embraced “print-on-demand” as a business model cannot keep up. Such is the reality of the new astronomy, gravitational wave astronomy. The LIGO, and then the VIRGO, instruments […]
In our book, “Reality in the Shadows,” Jim Gates, Frank Blitzer, and I take a look at the history of the Higgs particle, see the day the discovery was announced through the eyes of one of the co-authors (me), and explore what the Higgs might be besides being just another […]
“Reality in the Shadows” is a book that required years to write. I was the latest addition to the creative team, but it is very much a shared vision between three co-authors each with different perspectives on the subject matter. Jim Gates has a keen mathematical mind and delights in […]