The LHC is ramping beam energy now up to 4000 GeV per beam in preparation for the last stable beam running before machine development. Next week, we’ll resume data taking (I am told).
Skeptic Michael Shermer shared this fake cover image this morning, promoting the idea of a world where anti-science and pseudoscience are allowed equal rank to actual science. I agree with his comment, and go one step further: if this comes to pass, I want off this rock. ♲ Michael Shermer […]
Today I depart for Uppsala, to collaborate a little bit with my colleagues at Uppsala University. Uppsala is something of an intellectual powerhouse when it comes to the charged Higgs boson (they host a regular conference on the subject, and I have enjoyed participating in one of those conferences many […]
As of today, I am officially at CERN and will basically remain here until mid-July (I have a side-trip to Sweden this week). It’s certainly good to be back at CERN, and I looking forward to getting completely buried in research for the next 5 weeks.
Finding Parallel Worlds In the series “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” a well-crafted transporter modification is capable of hurling the crew of the station into a “mirror universe.” Everyone who exists in the known universe also exists in the mirror universe, but there they are not the same people. Major […]
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 […]
APS Physics reports on a challenge from Alan Alda. He challenges scientists to do a better job of communicating ideas to non-scientists. For instance, he posits, how would you answer the question, "What is a flame?" The article quotes Alda as saying that "scientists need to be able to speak […]
We’ve now lived in our house for one year. Unlike last year, we were here already when it was time to start planting in Texas. We started with a 4’x4′ planter box and a few tomato and pepper plants, the idea being that if this went well we’d expand in […]
I mean it this time. Really. (F***ing Yahoo). I almost can’t stop watching this time-lapse video of the Venus solar transit, taken by NASA instruments at high resolution. http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?collection_id=13587&media_id=145648241
I almost can’t stop watching this time-lapse video of the Venus solar transit, taken by NASA instruments at high resolution. http://news.yahoo.com/video#video=29574776
The site "Listen, Dammit" (@listendammit) brings you music reviews on the artists and bands you SHOULD be listening to. Print media, as we have known it, is dying; attempts to save the industry have largely ignored the internet and have, at times, resembled the ill-fated and heroic efforts that most […]
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) […]