Sounds like a The Big Bang Theory episode. Maybe someday it will be. But even in the fields of physics, supersymmetry is esoteric. What is it? What is its calamity? Why should you care? What it is is an idea: Particular superheroes! Here’s their story. The Standard Model is the crown jewel of physics. It […]
Sir Isaac Newton was a serious two timer long before that term took on its modern meaning. In 1687 he spoke of two kinds of time: Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature flows equably without relation to anything external, and by another name is called duration; [and] relative, apparent […]
Harry Potter brings cutting-edge ideas from quantum physics into the imaginations of a generation of young fiction readers. In previous posts we’ve looked at teleportation, levitation, and solids that can pass through other solids unimpeded (though not yet through brick walls). All three are examples of how quantum mechanics (QM) can make seeming-magic in the […]
The message of Dr. Bernard Forscher’s brick allegory is that data can obstruct the search for scientific explanation. Today we check a story about missing heat (recent fodder for climate-change denial). On the way to explanation we’ll see data being tweaked to say more than they should. (Data in my book is plural and datum […]
Around the world we’re starting to see same-old knee-jerk stuff. Irrational reactions to Ebola hurt us all: World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan says that 90 per cent of economic costs of an epidemic ‘come from irrational and disorganized efforts of the public to avoid infection.’ ‘Public’ includes public officials and push-button politicians and panicky […]
Ebola is a scary virus. Most know it is deadly. It is an international problem. We need evidence-based action to solve it, not play-on-fear border closings (c.f., SARS and swine flu) that do no good but damage the economy. We need a public conversation on ebola and it might be aided by some terms you […]
“Gravitational waves turn to dust” shouts a headline in The Guardian newspaper. Its news is that last month’s news of a Harvard team’s discovery of gravitational waves from the beginning of time may not reveal such waves at all. That stunning signal could have come from grains of dust in space. It’s no surprise when […]
Last week, headlines said ANTARCTIC GLACIER LOSS IS UNSTOPPABLE. Melting slowly, said the texts. It’s not a new concern. Forty years ago reinsurer Munich Re warned of such hazards. So, why now and what’s this to you? There’s more to this than meets the eye. Those glaciers are part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. […]
It’s still the sniffle season and there’s still no cure for the common cold. So says the Mayo Clinic; so say many others. They are wrong. Here is the long-sought cure. No kidding. It turns out to be spectacularly unspectacular. It is simple physics. (That’s too bad; if it were complex chemistry it would be […]