Oh, boy, was he strict. Harvey Korman, 1927-2008
I remember watching him on the Carol Burnett Show, trying not to laugh at something Tim Conway had done or said. That was as funny as the rest of the stuff.
Font Recognition Software
To help NCIS catch those evil fonts caught on video, only to find that their prints aren’t in AFIS.
via Daring Fireball
Don't Sleep Through This
Giving a Good Talk over at Life as a Physicist.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) there is a lot more to giving a good talk than just a good deck of slides. I think the number one thing for me is “tell a story.”
Some good tips to check out. A couple to add:
Don’t make your graphs too complicated and the admonition of death-before-yellow-on-white applies here as well. Also remember that (red/green) color blindness is not all that uncommon, so — especially if you’ve used red and/or green — point out which line you’re discussing, rather than just saying “the red line represents X”
I’ve heard a common critique that the presentation slides should be cartoonish, but I rarely find them funny, so I use a different description — simplify. The text should be the highlights, not a transcript. If you’ve followed the advice about fonts (I say minimum size ~18), you won’t be able to fit everything you say on the slides, anyway. You shouldn’t be speeding along any faster than about one slide per minute. And remember to breathe.
The Physics of a Half-Gaynor
Physics Floundering saved by Disco Parody
And just like that when I had given up all hope,
I said nope, there’s just one way to find that slope.
And so now I, I will derive.
Find the derivative of x position with respect to time.
It’s as easy as can be, just have to take dx/dt.
I will derive, I will derive. Hey, hey!
Dissin' the C-Monster
New Exhibit at the Physics Museum
The gallery of failed atomic models, 1903-1913 from Skulls in the Stars.
[H]ow many atomic models were there?
A lot. Most people in physics are taught Thomson’s ‘plum pudding’ model of the atom, but a little investigating turned up no less than eight distinct pictures of atomic structure.
The late 1800s and early 1900s was the breakthrough period of atomic research. A number of tantalizing pieces of experimental evidence suggested a nontrivial internal structure to the atom.
We are taught (and teach) the Bohr model because it has some use, even though it is wrong/incomplete. But it’s useful to remember that in the presence of fragmentary information there are going to be failed attempts at explaining the underlying phenomenon. As more data is uncovered the false theories can be weeded out, because they will not have predicted the event or will have predicted a phenomenon that was never observed, despite a reasonable expectation of doing so.
Toys in the Office: Gettin' Medieval
Bought this trebuchet as a kit several years ago, and put it together over the Memorial day weekend back then. I had seen a NOVA special about some men who built two using in-period tools, and then knocked down a wall with them. When I ran across the kits on the intertubes, I couldn’t get my wallet out fast enough. It came with what looked to be ~50 caliber musket shot, which is not exactly conducive to indoor testing, so I substituted balled-up aluminum foil. It’s a favorite of some visitors, including the safety inspector(!).
Here’s a Trebuchet Challenge for testing your mad siege engine skillz.
"Classic" Timekeeping, Part I: Introduction
Following the suggestion and subsequent reminder (nothing like a deadline to get the creative juices flowing) from gg at Skulls in the Stars, I’ve got two “old” papers that I’m going to summarize.
I recommend choosing something pre- World War II, as that was the era of hand-crafted, “in your basement”-style science. There’s a lot to learn not only about the ingenuity of researchers in an era when materials were not readily available, but also about the problems and concerns of scientists of that era, often things we take for granted now!
These are from 1931, fulfilling the pre-WWII criterion, when you still had individuals engaging in research that were self-financed or supported by a patron and much of the equipment was self-manufactured. The science in this case was largely self-funded, and as for the “basement,” well, it’s a pretty fancy basement as you’ll see, as one might suspect of someone who can fund his own science. But classic nonetheless. There’s a bit to do, and I’m going to break it up into more manageable chunks.
The papers in question are from the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 91, published in 1931, and are “The Precise Measurement of Time” by Alfred L. Loomis (p. 569-575) and “Time, Analysis of records made on the Loomis chronograph by three Shortt clocks and a crystal oscillator” by Brown, E. W. & Brouwer, D. (p.575-591). (I, know, I know. They sound like tabloid headlines, don’t they?) The first paper describes various apparati used, and the second describes a particular measurement that was of interest to me.
Unstable Equilibrium Never Looked So Good
Richard Feynman and The Connection Machine
Richard Feynman and The Connection Machine
Story of Richard Feynman working at Thinking Machines.
Many a visitor at Thinking Machines was shocked to see that we had a Nobel Laureate soldering circuit boards or painting walls. But what Richard hated, or at least pretended to hate, was being asked to give advice. So why were people always asking him for it? Because even when Richard didn’t understand, he always seemed to understand better than the rest of us. And whatever he understood, he could make others understand as well. Richard made people feel like a child does, when a grown-up first treats him as an adult. He was never afraid of telling the truth, and however foolish your question was, he never made you feel like a fool.
via Daring Fireball