This year is the “World Year of Physics”:http://www.physics2005.org/, as declared by the United Nations to honor the memory of Einstein’s “annus mirabilis” of 1905. That was the year that Einstein published his three ground-breaking papers on; (1) the photoelectric effect, establishing the particle or “quantum” nature of light; (2) the […]
First the scientists noted that the U.S. was cutting back to dangerous levels the funding for basic science. Then industry noticed, and in conjunction with academia issued the “Future of Innovation Report”:http://www.futureofinnovation.org listing the warning signs of bad things to come. Now it seems the press is taking note of […]
If ever the addage that “size doesn’t matter” needed illustration, I think we’ve found it the story of the “4.4 billion year-old speck on display at the UW Madison Geology Museum”:http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=624&ncid=753&e=5&u=/ap/20050411/ap_on_sc/oldest_object. I mentioned this a few days ago, and lamented that the scientists involved felt a bit shameful about the […]
My wife and I cozied up on the futon tonight to watch the 10 o’clock airing of “Faith Under Fire” on PAX, a cable TV network with ostensibly religious overtones to its programming. I was interested in seeing how the religious side, represented by its own media, framed this debate. […]
I was picking about in the internet, checking out some of the places I don’t usually go. One of those is the “Discovery Institute”:http://www.discovery.org, the leading institution pushing the philosophy of “intelligent design”. Intelligent design has so far only been an attempt to veil creationism as pseudoscience, claiming that the […]
I was a graduate student at the Universe of Wisconsin-Madison from 1998-2004. When I first moved there, I lived in a studio apartment on Spring St., two blocks from the physics department. I also happened to live right behind the geology department. While thumbing through “Yahoo! News”:http://news.yahoo.com tonight when I […]
I am on shift today, here in building 5 (the SLAC accelerator main control center, or MCC). I am filling the shift position referred to as “liaison”, and my job is to make sure that the experiment (Babar) know’s what the accelerator (LINAC and PEP) is doing, and vice versa. […]
Yeah, I don’t normally read SPAM. Let me state that for the record – full disclosure! – so that you folks out there don’t get the wrong idea. However, I got one today I thought was funny in its misguidance. It was one of these “religious SPAM disguised as science” […]
Of this whole private matter of the Schiavos and the Schindlers, I’ll only say this: I wish that the legislators who tried to meddle in private affairs, that the President in his pajamas with so much determination, that these enthusiastic and sometimes agressive protestors in Florida, would take all the […]
Despite the intervening 24 hours, I am still pretty shaken by the young voices from yersterday’s “News Hour with Jim Lehrer” segment on the debate on evolution. My wife and I discussed this last night on the way home from work, and a little after she watched the re-run of […]
I am shocked. Sickened and shocked. If you have a connection to the internet, or a TV, listen to the report on tonights “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer” (“http://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/index.html”:http://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/index.html) . This report by the News Hour’s science team has detailed interviews with students in rural America, proponents of Christian […]
It has been a VERY long time since my last entry. I have a lot to catch up on, so this will have to be brief. First, I went to Washington D.C. two weeks ago to lobby for increased funding for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science and the […]