Month: September 2012
-
Two years before the blog
Originally posted on Galileo's Pendulum: Two years ago on this date, I launched a blog called “Science Vs. Pseudoscience“, connected to a class I was teaching of the same name and concept. As you might guess, the focus of the original blog was more on skepticism: identifying and debunking pseudoscientific attitudes. Since my students were…
-
Today’s DIY project: print your own centrifuge!
If you (like me) have ever been in charge of buying and/or maintaining lab equipment, you might have griped about its cost, or your inability to repair it. A new DIY movement based on open-source hardware and software could allow for the relatively inexpensive fabrication of laboratory equipment. My latest for Ars Technica has the…
-
Clearing up uncertainty about Heisenberg
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is one of the most important results in quantum theory, dealing with limitations of accurate measurements on two complementary quantities. However, there is a misconception (dating from Heisenberg himself) that the act of measurement is what causes the uncertainty. A new experiment has demonstrated that view is wrong, as I explain…
-
Science Online and me
Over the last year, I’ve become very involved with the Science Online community. This is a group focused around an annual (un)conference, whose purpose is the communication of science through electronic media. Here’s an interview I did with Bora Zivkovic, one of the leading figures in the Science Online community. Key excerpt: I still think…
-
Too many heavy particles could mean trouble for the Standard Model
The Standard Model (SM) of particles and interactions provides a successful description of most of the matter we know of. However, physicists have known for many years that it is not complete: the SM predicted massless neutrinos, and has no place for dark matter. A new result from the BaBar experiment at the Stanford Linear…
-
Black holes don’t suck!
So This Physicist Walked Into a Bar….. I gave a talk last week at Science Pub RVA, a local (Richmond, Virginia) gathering of science enthusiasts. At the link above, you can read a (long) summary of my presentation, including the images I used.
Bowler Hat Science 