Today is Dec. 10 (at least, in the United States) – the day the Nobel Prizes are awarded (“http://nobelprize.org/”:http://nobelprize.org/). This day marks the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, a man made wealthy by his dangerous work on the development of dynamite. He established the prize to recognize outstanding […]
Science
449 posts
Some weeks, it just doesn’t pay to think about some topics. When I returned from Thanksgiving break on Monday morning, I did so only to find an alarming e-mail in my inbox. The e-mail, from a close colleague of mine, relayed the fact that our competitor experiment, Belle, had completed […]
I’ve been picked on for watching Gilmore Girls. I’ve also been picked on for watching “Angel” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”. In fact, I once mocked a good friend of mine for doing just that. But seemingly stupid TV can actually hide many nuggets of great writing and acting. “Buffy” […]
About a year ago, I discovered the book “It Takes a Family” by Senator Rick Santorum. I commented on this book’s views on the scientific theories of both evolution and the big bang, as well as its attitudes toward a theory of multiple universes [TAOMPH96]. In short, I was unimpressed […]
What seems like a very long time ago, my family took a vacation. Vacations were a near rarity in my family – by which I mean the kind of textbook, campy Americana vacation depicted in movies. We spent lots of time at the beach, and plenty of time just hanging […]
I’ve had the privelege of participating in lobbying Congress about science for almost half a decade, and in that time I have seen scientists take more steps to raise their public profile. We have been graced by a number of opportunities to engage the public, and the government, about our […]
My dad is a chemistry teacher, and a chemist by training. Naturally, a son who wound up as a physicist (and a daughter who married a physicist) must be a great disappointment to such a proud man. I’m kidding, of course, except the part about my sister marrying a physicist. […]
I like “Numb3rs”. Not just the kind that let you do math, but also the TV show that attempts to popularize the life and minds of scientists. Centering on the stories of Charlie, a math prodigy and the youngest full faculty member at “CalPoly” (clearly modeled on CalTech), and his […]
“Is there anything you can do on the space station that you can’t do by locking yourself in your car for a few days?” That was Tom Bodett’s quip this morning on “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” (the NPR news quiz) following a story on the recent space tourist’s reports […]
When I stay up late to work, I usually switch in NPR’s “Day to Day” program. It’s taped earlier in the day, but here on KQED airs late at night. They were reviewing listener letters concerning a piece criticizing extreme religions and also criticizing the behavior of self-labeled “moderate Christians” […]
The Constitution of the United States guarantees that the U.S. government shall not abridge any expression of religion (covered under free speech), nor establish a state religion (the “Establishment Clause”). As “Bob Park”:http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN06/wn092906.html pointed out this week, and as I had heard would happen, the House of Representatives passed a […]
I haven’t been back to Naperville since I last attended a Braidwood collaboration meeting, a few months before the project was canceled by the Department of Energy without peer review. Yeah, I’m still harping on that, but it’s a point worth making (over and over). I’m here now to present […]