http://cosmicvariance.com Random samplings from a universe of ideas Thu, 21 Aug 2008 21:59:08 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en A while back Sean wrote about the documentary film "The Atom Smashers" by Clayton Brown and Monica Ross, two Chicago-area filmmakers. The film is in final editing now, and in fact will premiere at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago next month, September 19! My ... http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/08/21/the-atom-smashers/ Many of you scoffed last week when I mentioned that Lucretius had been a pioneer in statistical mechanics. (Not out loud, but inwardly, there was scoffing.) But it's true. Check out this passage from De Rerum Natura, in which Lucretius proposes that the universe arises as a ... http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/08/21/the-first-quantum-cosmologist/ Chad laments that we don't hear that much about the decathlon any more, because Americans aren't really competitive. I also think it's a shame, because any sport in which your score can be a complex number deserves more attention. Yes, it's true. The decathlon combines ten different track and ... http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/08/19/the-hidden-complexity-of-the-olympics/ I’ve been blogging the last few weeks about the question of the baryon asymmetry of the universe – the measured excess of matter over antimatter in the universe. Having already discussed electroweak baryogenesis, I'd now like to turn to another possible way that this asymmetry may have come about - ... http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/08/18/matter-v-antimatter-iii-leptogenesis/ Apparently this is some newfangled technology by which pajamas-wearing loners can share their deep thoughts with strangers. New examples keep appearing, as if the existing blogs don't already say more or less everything worth saying. Here is a long-overdue blogroll update, conveniently sorted into categories: Physics-y Blogs Twisted Physics Science After ... http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/08/18/blogoplexus/ And another paper! Will the science never end? Superhorizon Perturbations and the Cosmic Microwave Background Adrienne L. Erickcek, Sean M. Carroll, Marc Kamionkowski (Caltech) Abstract: Superhorizon perturbations induce large-scale temperature anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) via the Grishchuk-Zel'dovich effect. We analyze the CMB temperature anisotropies generated ... http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/08/15/superhorizon-perturbations-and-the-cosmic-microwave-background/ I promised (myself) that I would post something every time I submitted a paper, but have been falling behind. An exciting glimpse into How Science Is Done! So here is arxiv:0807.4363: Dark-Matter-Induced Weak Equivalence Principle Violation Sean M. Carroll, Sonny Mantry, Michael J. Ramsey-Musolf, Christopher W. Stubbs A long-range fifth force coupled to ... http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/08/14/dark-matter-and-fifth-forces/ I'm in the throes of writing a muckity-muck review article on the scientific impact of the Hubble Space Telescope. I've got plenty of opinions about what aspects of HST were transformative in my own subfields, but I thought I'd throw open the floor to the CV readers as well. ... http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/08/13/the-impact-of-the-hubble-space-telescope/ Via Sociological Images. That's why you should become scientists, kids! (Because engineers don't have sex. You want me to spell it out for you?) I really should just leave it at that, but the sprawling, multifaceted stupidity of this public service announcement -- apparently having sex, like smoking the wacky ... http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/08/12/great-moments-in-framing/ Questions for the Day: Why is this paper to referee in my inbox? Why can't I safely assume that if I've refereed a paper, and haven't seen a revised version in more than year, that the paper is actually dead? Why, in spite of my polite-but-scathing review in 2007, have they revised nothing ... http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/08/12/zombie-papers-of-the-undead/ Currently reporting from a tiny, hip hotel at an undisclosed location on the West Coast. Of the various ways in which this establishment brands itself as edgy and unconventional, there is no standard-issue Gideon Bible tucked in a drawer somewhere in each room. Instead, one is presented with ... http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/08/11/spiritual-menu/ Remember when I asked for suggested topics for an upcoming Bloggingheads discussion with David Albert about quantum mechanics? The finished dialogue is up and available here: I would estimate that we covered about, say, three percent of the suggested topics. Sorry about that. But perhaps it's better to ... http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/08/08/quantum-diavlog/ Robert Novak, conservative pundit/journalist and TV personality, is retiring after being diagnosed with a brain tumor. Novak and I probably don't agree on many things, and he isn't called "The Prince of Darkness" for nothing (nor does he seem to especially mind). But brain tumors shouldn't happen to ... http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/08/07/chatting-theology-with-robert-novak/ What’s in a name? What if I had a major mid-life crisis and ceased being JoAnne Hewett and insisted on being Susan Smith instead? How would friends and relatives get in contact with me? What if I thought I told everybody, but had forgotten about my ... http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/08/05/the-laboratory-formerly-known-as-slac/ The Barenaked Ladies' "Snacktime" is on very heavy rotation in my house these days. It's officially an album for children (which explains the heavy rotation, because if kids like something once, they like it for approximately the next billion times). However, a lot of it is laugh-out-loud ... http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/08/05/mathematical-induction-for-seven-year-olds/ The Orlando Sentinel (which clearly has a dog in this fight) is reporting that Obama is backing off of plans to cut NASA's budget. The article is somewhat brief on details, but it seems clear that Obama is now willing to continue shuttle flights until 2010 and to continue ... http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/08/04/obama-is-coming-around-on-nasa/ With the Large Hadron Collider almost ready to turn on, it's time to prepare ourselves for what it might find. (The real experts, of course, have been preparing themselves for this for many years!) Chad Orzel was asked what we should expect from the LHC, and I thought ... http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/08/04/what-will-the-lhc-find/ The last and arguably highest-tech detector elements are, this week, being installed into the giant CMS experiment at CERN: the pixel detectors. After these detectors are installed, there remains only the beam conditions monitor, a small device, and then the experiment can be buttoned up in anticipation of the ... http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/07/31/final-pieces-of-the-cms-puzzle/ Too much science on this blog, it's getting stuffy around here. How about a poem from John Ashbery? You can't say it that way any more. Bothered about beauty you have to Come out into the open, into a clearing, And rest. Certainly whatever funny happens to you Is OK. To demand more than ... http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/07/31/and-ut-pictura-poesis-is-her-name/ I had just stepped out of the shower yesterday (getting a bit of a late start, yes) when the building began to shake. We're on the ninth floor of a twelve-story building in downtown Los Angeles, so it was quite exciting there for a while -- the ground shook ... http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/07/30/quake/