Category: Galileo’s Pendulum
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Jumping from the “edge of space”…whatever that means
Yesterday, Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner (best known for jumping off skyscrapers) successfully completed a 39 kilometer dive from a balloon. Many media outlets described his jump as beginning “at the edge of space”, but the story is a little more complex than that. One thing bothered me, though, about a lot of the coverage: many…
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A Nobel Prize curmudgeon speaks out
The Nobel Prizes recognize good scientific achievements, but in many ways the attention they get is disproportionate to their value, and presents a false view of how science really works. Part of the problem instead is that the Nobel Prizes perpetuate the idea of a handful of Great Men (only two women have won the…
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Trapping particles leads to 2012 Nobel Prize in physics
The the winners of the 2012 Nobel Prize in physics were announced this morning: Serge Haroche and David J. Wineland. Their work involves trapping and measuring the quantum states of photons and ions, respectively: A major challenge is measuring the state of a quantum system without modifying it. On the macroscopic scale, we can generally…
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You may hate me, but don’t spread your lies to children
I take it personally when idiot politicians call me and my fellow scientists evil liars. My latest post at Galileo’s Pendulum explains why: Broun and his compatriots obviously think very bad things about me, my friends, and the work we do. They don’t just disagree or think we’re wrong, they think we’re literally in league…
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Just the facts, ma’am
“Must have facts,” said Lord Peter, “facts. When I was a small boy I always hated facts. Thought of ’em as nasty, hard things, all knobs. Uncompromisin’.” (from Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L. Sayers) My latest post over at Galileo’s Pendulum explains why I won’t be writing a book called “1,001 Mind-Blowing Facts About the…
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High-resolution image of supermassive black hole shows engine of destruction
A collection of four big telescopes in Arizona, California, and Hawaii have banded together to examine one of the biggest black holes we know: the beast at the heart of the galaxy M87. What they found: the disk of gas driving M87’s huge jet rotates the same direction as the black hole that made it.…
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Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup
The Hubble eXtreme Deep Field (XDF) survey is the result of over 10 years of data, observing a single patch of sky roughly 1/15 the size of the full Moon (2 arcminutes, for the experts). The image encompasses 22.5 days worth of exposure time (though not all at once!), with the Hubble Space Telescope aimed…
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Ships on a quantum sea
My latest post at Galileo’s Pendulum tests a way to explain quantum field theory to non-scientists, which I hope to put in my book-in-progress. Please go read the post, and let me know what you think! Just as a ship moving through still water produces a wake, electrons create ripples in the ambient electromagnetic field.…
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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…
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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 