For the second time, I will be attending the Rencontres de Blois, a yearly conference that represents a convergence (perhaps even a conversation) between cosmology, astronomy, astrophysics, and particle physics. Held in the Chateau de Blois, a castle perched above the Loire River in Blois, France, this conference will bring […]
Physics
260 posts
I am Stephen Sekula, an Assistant Professor of Physics at SMU conducting research on the ATLAS Experiment. These comments will be my own, and I will try to take a broad view. Let me begin by thanking the members of the Panel for this opportunity to speak, and let me […]
Editorial Note (9/1/13): The program “Marketplace” recently looked into Mr. Mills’ claim. They found it to be nonsense. See: http://www.marketplace.org/topics/sustainability/no-your-phone-doesnt-use-much-electricity-refrigerator. I like that they put the answer right in their headline: NO. Editorial Note (8/23/13): since originally posting the article, a commenter (“Jay”) pointed out that the number I pulled from […]
In today’s New York Times [1], writer Jim Holt gave his opinion on the row initiated by physicist Lawrence Krauss regarding the value of philosophy. You can go read the details of that spat on your own; I’m about as interested in that debate as I am in polo. For […]
The University of Arts and Sciences of Oklahoma (USAO) published an article on my future-brother-in-law’s successful efforts to engage students directly physics by having them design, construct, and fire home-built catapults. I’m particularly fond of the winning design (discussed in the article), for its extremely clever use of both weight(s) […]
[This post was inspired by a comment in an article on PhysOrg, http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-09-cern-faster-than-light-particle.html. Thanks to Randy Scalise for bringing it to my attention.] In 1987, a distant star exploded. Here on Earth, it was named “SN1987a” – Supernova 1987a. Here are some basic facts about SN1987a: it occurred (51.4 +/- […]
In part 1 of this series, I discussed the four laws of thermodynamics. These laws tells us that the total change in energy in a system, dU, is composed of two parts: dU = dQ – dW where dQ is the heat energy added to the system and dW is […]
High temperatures in Texas have been above 100 for over a month. When we park our car to go shopping, there is rarely any tree shade in which to place the car. As a result, the car is left in the direct glare of the sun, with windows closed (since […]
In his collection of essays, Profiles of the Future, Arthur C. Clark famously penned three “laws of prediction.” The third of these is the most widely quoted, and simply states that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” [1] While in Fry’s tonight, Jodi and I happened by some […]
In the first two parts of the “Hypothesis of Big Government” series, I got my hands on federal employment and employee income data, and also on median family income data, from about 1947 to 2007. A commenter on the second part of the series noted that ” . . . […]
In the movie, “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” author Audrey Niffenegger explores the relationship between a husband, who unpredictably travels through time, and his wife, who must deal with his disappearances and harrowing experiences. But what if it was the wife whose life had become unpredictable, and the husband who had […]