Category Archives: Physics Humor
Quantum Mechanical Effects in Microgravity
If there were any quantum effects to be seen, I wasn’t paying attention… Dorith (Mrs. diyPhysics) and I were having too much fun!
Click here for photos of Day 1 in the G Force One zero-g airplane
Click here for photos of Day 2 in the G Force One zero-g airplane
For more information about Zero G go to http://www.gozerog.com/
Loved the Book “How the Hippies Saved Physics” by David Kaiser
I just finished the book “How the Hippies Saved Physics” by David Kaiser and absolutely loved!
The book was fun and immensely educational regarding the seemingly unlikely seed of modern-day quantum information theory. I must confess that when I first saw the book on the shelf at my local Barnes & Noble I dismissed it as yet another pseudo-scientific account of quantum physics. However, I bought a copy after reading the following review in New Scientist:
“David Kaiser’s How the Hippies Saved Physics is a reminder of the unexpected influence a bunch of freewheeling 1970s physicists had on fundamental theories
IT’S certainly a provocative title, but for the life of me I could not recall an era to which How the Hippies Saved Physics might have applied. Things made more sense, though, on reading David Kaiser’s mention of two other books, both of which had left a big impression on me: Fritjof Capra’s The Tao of Physics and Gary Zukav’s The Dancing Wu Li Masters.
I Really Understand QM…
Bad Physics at the Equator – Shame on the Intiñan Solar Museum!
Abigail Prutchi at the official “Mitad del Mundo” monument commemorating the 18th Century French Geodesic Mission marking of the Equator
Abigail and I just returned from a trip to the Galapagos Islands. On the way, we visited the iconic Mitad del Mundo (Middle of the World) monument which commemorates the 18th-century French Geodesic Mission expedition carried out for the purpose of measuring the roundness of the Earth and measuring the length of a degree of latitude at the Equator.
The monument is constructed at the site where the Geodesic Mission calculated the passing of the Equator. Modern measurements show that the Equator actually crosses about 240 meters north of the marked line. Not bad at all for 18th-Century Physics, and an accomplishment worthy of the beautiful monument that commemorates it!
The Intiñan Solar Museum is a shameless tourist trap. Tour guides get a kickback from the unscrupulous owners of this site where credulous tourists are shown tricks that supposedly can happen only at the Equator. This is a prime example of Bad Physics fueled by greed!
Recently however, a group of unscrupulous investors led by Mr. Humberto Vera started the Intiñan Solar Museum, which reportedly marks the true Equator. Not true!
Tour guides take tourists there because the museum pays them a kickback (which the official Mitad del Mundo doesn’t).
Happy Quantum Halloween!
No Joke: Science Is A Laughing Matter – NPR’s Science Friday April 1st Edition
Yesterday, Friday, March 30th, 2012, NPR’s Science Friday had its yearly April 1st “No Joke: Science Is A Laughing Matter” program. Want to hear a joke about sodium hypobromite? NaBrO! Can science be the butt of a good joke? Ira Flatow and guests test the hypothesis in an annual April Fools’ joke-a-thon. They share the best gags in the business. Sidesplitting or groan-worthy? You decide.
Program announcement in NPR’s Archive:
http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201203301
Download mp3 of the show: http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/sciencefriday/scifri201203301.mp3
Engineer’s Date Night
Image Credit: Daniel Vasconcellos
From: http://www.edn.com/article/471834-Something_from_nothing.php
