The Test(ing) of Time 2: Freezing Time
A month and a half ago, I reported on a simple experiment to measure the performance of a timer from the teaching labs. I started the timer running at a particualr time, and over the next couple of...
View ArticleHow Good Are Polarized Sunglasses?
A while back, I explained how polarized sunglasses work, the short version of which is that light reflected off the ground in front of you tends to be polarized, and by blocking that light, they reduce...
View ArticleScientific Commuting: When Does It Make Sense to Take Alternate Routes?
I am an inveterate driver of “back ways” to places. My preferred route to campus involves driving through a whole bunch of residential streets, rather than taking the “main” road leading from our...
View ArticleThe Physics of a Sad Balloon
My birthday was two months ago, and SteelyKid’s was the weekend before last, so we’ve had balloons running around the house for a good while now. Meaning that when I came into the library yesterday, I...
View ArticleExcellent Approximations and Lying to Children
In which I talk about the common complaint that we teach students physics that “isn’t true,” and the limits on that statement. ———— Frequent commenter Ron sent me an email pointing to this post by...
View ArticleSingle Photons Are Still Photons: “Wave-particle dualism and complementarity...
In which we do a little ResearchBlogging, taking a look at a slightly confusing paper putting a new twist on the double-slit experiment. ———— I’m off to California this afternoon, spending the rest of...
View ArticleHow Did the arXiv Succeed?
In which we look again at the question of why, despite the image of physicists as arrogant bastards, biologists turn out to be much less collegial than physicists. ———— While I was away from the blog,...
View ArticleTen Years Before the Blog: 2005-2006 (Part II, the Start of ScienceBlogs)
In which we look at the end of the Steelypips era and the launch of ScienceBlogs. ———— Before the Great Upgrade derailed things completely for a month, I was working on a recap of this blog’s history,...
View ArticleWhy Should You Think Like a Scientist?
As you may or may not know, I’m currently at work on a book called How to Think Like a Scientist. This raises the fairly obvious question in the post title, namely, why should people think like...
View ArticleModern Physics and Scientific Thinking
Yesterday’s big post on why I think people should embrace scientific thinking in a more conscious way than they do already (because my claim is that most people already use scientific thinking, they’re...
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