Any set of figures needs adjusting before it can be usefully reported
The last two [articles], at least, made a good effort to explain that this effect disappeared when the researchers accounted for social and demographic factors. But was there ever any point in reporting the raw finding, from before this correction was made?
For physics majors, I think students need to practice model building. They also need to understand what has been done before. They need to stand on the shoulders of giants too.
FACT: Dolly Parton is two amazing singers. If you slow her songs down (as if you were playing an old 45 at 33rpm) she sounds completely different and really terrific
Two examples at the link: 9 to 5 and Jolene
Inspired by this, I’ve spent a few hours playing around with some slowdown software, and there are some songs that are interesting when you play them at 3/4 or 2/3 speed, and others when you speed them up.
Electric Field from a Built-In Flex
The flexoelectric effect is the trendy younger cousin of the better-known piezoelectric effect, in which certain solids develop an internal electric field when squeezed or stretched. The phenomenon has proven useful in devices from scanning tunneling microscopes to cigarette lighters, but it can only exist in 20 of the 32 crystal symmetry classes that materials scientists use to categorize solids.
I think it’s unfortunate that the wackaloon celebrities get virtually all the airtime, so it’s refreshing for me to see an actor who can articulate a point and think on his feet. I’m sure (or at least hope) there are others out there, and we just don’t get to see them often enough.
His point about the “intrinsically paternalistic view of problems that are much more complex than that” is spot-on. Just because some people do things for money doesn’t mean that’s what drives everyone.
Uncertain Principles: How Much Outreach Do We Need? Depends on What You Mean by “We”
If you want to argue that we have plenty of outreach going on in astronomy and particle physics, that’s fine, but to say that astronomy and physics outreach is sufficient for science as a whole (or even just physics, which I’ve heard people say) is just insulting.
Astronomy and particle physics aren’t the whole of the physical sciences. Astronomers and particle physicists are significantly outnumbered by people doing other types of physics– condensed matter, atomic and molecular, materials science. Those topics don’t get anywhere near as much attention as things you can illustrate with a picture from the Hubble telescope.
“Yeah, but astronomy and particle physics touch on really big questions, that inspire people,” you say. “Oh, bite me,” I reply.
(If anyone is tempted to take this to the next level, I’ll remind you that we have lasers. Just sayin’)
If you give the narrow glimpse of physics as accelerators and telescopes, you make the same mistake as painting grad school as only a pathway to academia: you sin by omission.
The Virtuosi – Physics in Sports: The Fosbury Flop
The Fosbury Flop came into the High Jumping scene in the 1968 Olympics, where Dick Fosbury used the technique to win the gold medal. The biggest difference between the Flop and previous methods is that the jumper goes over the bar upside down (facing the sky). This allows the jumper to bend their back so that their arms and legs drape below the bar
It is significant that Fosbury is not modeled as a sphere.
Dot Physics: World Record Blob Jump
I guess the best explanation for how it works is that it is like a giant see-saw. When people jump down on one side of the huge airbag, the other side goes up. If you consider small energy losses, then the work done by the bag in slowing the falling people down is the same work done on the launched person.
