XKCD on physicists…
Cartoon from xkcd Several years ago, I had an Indian physicist tell me that “physicists don’t consider biology a real science,” so I couldn’t help but laugh at this cartoon. Of course, I know plenty of physicists who are perfectly willing to acknowledge the scientific value of biology, and some of them work on biophysics, […]
Published a Wired article on slowing light
Was excited to publish my first article for Wired Science last week! The article, which appeared on Wired.com, was about a new tiny chip that could slow light down at room temperature, thanks to some quantum physical effects. The article was fairly challenging to write, but thankfully the UC Santa Cruz researcher responsible, Holger Schmidt, […]
Eric Heller’s Gallery of Quantum Art
Eric J. Heller Gallery A gallery of images by Harvard physics and chemistry professor Eric J. Heller. According to his website, his digital abstract art is inspired by: “a world we cannot directly see; the quantum realm of electrons, atoms, and molecules. The strange, often chaotic quantum domain yields forms, which I use as a […]
Your Guide to the Year in Science: 2010 | Popular Science
Your Guide to the Year in Science: 2010 | Popular Science. This is a section that appears every January in Popular Science, and tries to predict the top news stories of the upcoming year. I wrote two sections in it, ‘Life After Death?’ and ‘Births and Deaths’ (on pages 2 and 5 respectively), but I just posted […]
Interview: NASA Scientist’s Plan to Extract Moon Water Affordably Using Microwaves | Popular Science
I had a chat with Dr. Ed Ethridge, who’s been using microwaves to extract water from the moon. Now that there actually seems to be a lot more water on the moon than previously predicted, we need a way to get it out. Microwaves seem to be currently the most promising technology for this. Follow […]
NASAs Messenger Flyby Captures Never-Before-Seen Images of Mercury | Popular Science
NASAs Messenger Flyby Captures Never-Before-Seen Images of Mercury | Popular Science. Fascinating new pictures of Mercury taken by NASA’s Messenger spacecraft. Another little write-up for PopSci.com, follow the link above to read and see all the images.
Watch ‘Feynman’s lectures on physics’ for free online
In my experience, physics is one subject that’s so often poorly taught and seems incomprehensible. And yet, when it’s actually explained well, a lot of the concepts can be so easy to understand…even when the math behind them may be out of reach 🙂 Richard Feynman was probably one of the most brilliant and eccentric […]