- Climate Change Skeptics
Paul Krugman has a piece on climate change on his blog at the NY Times. One commenter responds:One thing they are gong [sic] to do is point out that if the ppm increase in atmospheric CO2 is solely du…
- Chemical Urban Legends: pH
What does the p in pH stand for?The term pH has been in use for more than a century. It is a logarithmic measure of the hydrogen ion concentration ([H+]): pH = -log10[H+]. (Technically, there aren't b…
- Open Laboratory 2009
Open Laboratory 2009 - a juried anthology of the best of the science blogosphere from last year has appeared. Edited by scicurious, it's available here. I have a piece in it - a cleaner version of thi…
- Nobel Conversations
I vividly remember the first time I met a Nobel Prize winner. I was a graduate student in my 3rd year, and Roald Hoffman had recently won the Prize in chemistry (1981). A group of us went up with our…
- Are scientists palatable?
In the early part of the 19th century, the word scientist had yet to be coined. As the scope of materials and phenomena that natural philosophers and historians dealt with increased, there was a growi…
- Science blogging at its best: Open Laboratory 2009
In 2006, Bora Zivkovic brought us the first edition of Open Laboratory, a print collection of the best science blogging of the year. Now in its 4th year, the 2009 edition, guest edited by scicurious a…
- Chemistry on Holiday: Science Cookies
'tis the season for baking on the home front. It's been mostly biologically based leavening (yeast) at my house, but some strictly chemical rising has been going on as well. For an interesting mix of…
- Unfortunate Acronyms: PUS
When I was lecturing on lasers this week, I was surprised to discover how many of my students were unaware that laser was an acronym (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation). Science…
- Sex and the scientist
(Cross posted at my other blog.)I am in the midst of writing an essay for Nature Chemistry - about why people are so curious about stereotypes of scientists, but seem less so about other fields. There…
- Feeling quizical?
Pew tracks American's familiarity with the news of the day - my kids took the latest quiz (and each scored in the top quartile for adults and so were quite pleased with themselves). I played with some…
- Nobel quote
After I won a Nobel Prize I suddenly turned into an omniscient sage, whereas formerly I was simply a workaholic.Richard Ernst, Chemistry 1991(H/T to Nature Chemistry's October editorial)Photo of Dirac…
- Quantum Mechanics on the Silver Screen: Science of Watchmen
I drive my kids crazy when I critique dramas based on their science content. Listen to the science consultant for Watchmen (Physicist James Kakalio of University of Minnesota) talk about the quantum m…
- The pressure to preserve
Stephen Davey, associate editor for Nature Chemistry, blogged at the Sceptical Chymist about visiting the National Archives and seeing the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of…
- Word Wraps: From the ACS meeting
I am at the ACS meeting in Washington DC, here as press rather than chemist. It's a very different way to see the meeting. I went to a press briefing this morning - on the first phases of development…
- Chocolate Math Mystery
My youngest and I are heading into Philadelphia tonight for a chocolate dessert feast, so it seems apt that a friend sent me this bit of mathematical magic this morning - with a plea to explain how it…
- Weird Words of Science: Azote
I was playing Scrabble online the other day and when a z materialized on my rack near the end of the game was desperate enough to try azo. Good news, what I thought was chemist's shorthand, the dictio…
- Releasing the Tension
My youngest son, Barnacle Boy, swims like a fish. When he was small, he could stay under water just a second longer than I though he should be able to -- I'd be ready to reach under and haul him to th…
- Sweet leads
Sugar of Lead Poison BottleOriginally uploaded by john4kcHorror of horrors - the Romans used lead to sweeten their fruit. No wonder Rome fell! Except that I was willing to read a 1883 paper (in German…
- Sweet Stones
I was wandering the Cape Anne historical museum this winter and noticed in a 19th century ship's medical kit a vial labeled sugar of lead. This is lead acetate, which tastes sweet -- and is reputed to…
- Anti-Archimedes
The recipe for pulled pork called for 1/2 cup of brown sugar to be dissolved into 1 1/2 cups of apple cider vinegar. What I had in the cabinet was solid as a rock - there was no way I was packing this…
- Cold as Ice
This article in the Atlantic monthly caught my eye, if only because it included an experiment and less because of my refined palate. Wayne Curtis is writing about the unsung hero or villian of mixed d…
- Weird Words of Science: Hypsometer
Every time I write an exam, I think about this story, where a physics professor asks on an exam how to measure the height of a building using a barometer. A student answered that he would tie a string…
- Nano-meter
The Nano Song from nanomonster on Vimeo.This song certainly has rhythm as well as meter...and does give you a sense of what nano means. My non-musical attempt of a couple of years ago is not so jazzy!
- Table Manners in Nature Chemistry
The second issue of Nature Chemistry appeared online today, with my musings about the shapes the periodic table can take, and why I think chemists like to keep their elements in boxes.Chemists have cr…
- All that glitters...may be tin
While medieval alchemists were searching for the secrets of turning base metals, such as lead and tin, into gold, medieval artists had already figured out how to do this. Gold was often applied to man…
[ more posts from cultureofchemistry.blogspot.com ]
- This and That
The Nobel Foundation goes YouTube.Have you ever wanted to ask a Nobel Laureate a question? Now, here's your chance! Ask a Nobel Laureate is offering you a unique opportunity to communicate with some o…
- What's in a book?
In the comments to my recent post Addicted!, Steven, Christine and I were discussing the value of science books. Steven let us know he has a sick addiction to Science books and Christine writes I want…
- The Box-Problem in Deformed Special Relativity
As you know, I'm presently visiting Perimeter Institute. I was asked to speak in today's Quantum Gravity group meeting about one of my recent papers:The Box-Problem in Deformed Special Relativity, arX…
- Gravity is Entropy is Gravity is...
I've been thinking recently about Erik Verlinde's paper On the Origin of Gravity and the Laws of Newton (arXiv:1001.0785v1 [hep-th]). Some of you will have noticed it's been discussed in the blogosphe…
- Yes, We Can't
Elementary logic is arguably the most basic ingredient to fruitful argumentation. Nevertheless, you don't have to look far in the world wide web to figure most people have one or the other problem wit…
- The Stephen Hawking Centre
Last year, I told you about Perimeter Institute's expansion. According to their 5 year plan (which you can download here) the recruitment goal is approximately 25 Faculty members (11 at present) and 2…
- Happy Birthday
... it's four years of backreaction today!You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother. ~ Albert Einstein
- Interna
I'll be visiting Perimeter Institute the coming three weeks. If I manage to get to Toronto that is. I'm flying with Lufthansa, but Lufthansa decided they'll go on strike, starting today. According to…
- Addicted!
I meant to just try it once, but then I couldn't stop. CAPITAL LETTERS! They were demanding immediate attention, captivating, impossible to ignore. I GOT STUCK IN CAPS LOCK. Now I'm on withdrawal. WIT…
- Endless Talking
Yesterday, I read that Chad Orzel decided he won't read any blogs for Lent. I'm not Catholic, so can't really relate to the religious aspect of the decision, but some of his remarks might resonate wit…
- Free Falling
My recent post on the black hole information loss problem drifted off into the basics of General Relativity, and I thought it would be worthwhile to repeat some essentials, most notably what freely fa…
- 350 years Royal Society
As Sabine has mentioned earlier today, this year is the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society, the british national academy of science. Going back to a gathering of a few men interested in Experiment…
- This and That
I'm presently stuck with what I've been working on lately. It's the really, really frustrating phase. Once you start looking into the details of an idea, problems occur to you that you previously were…
- Why, oh why, is the Psi called Psi?
I'm currently reading Sean Carroll's book From Eternity to Here and stumbled over this remarkIn Newtonian mechanics, the space of states is called phase space for reasons that are pretty mysterious.A…
- Black Holes and Information Loss
Here is - finally! - the continuation of my previous posts on Causal Diagrams and The Causal Diagram of the Black Hole. Due to popular demand, this time we will discuss the black hole information loss…
- The LHC Proton Source
Yesterday, we had a very nice colloquium by Jonas Strandberg from the University of Michigan on The startup of the LHC and the very first collisions in the ATLAS detector (abstract and video here). If…
- LaserFest 2010
This year, the laser will turn 50! On May 16, 1960, at the Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California, Theodore Maiman realized for the first time Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of…
- Bloggy Notes
First: As some of you (Steven,Phil) have noticed, we have turned on comment moderation for all posts older than 14 days. Blogger only allows such selective comment moderation since recently. I've trie…
- Interna
We've had some more snow the last days. Sweden is very family friendly, but some restrictions do apply ;-)This reminded me that when I was moving to Stockholm I joked the trajectory I'm on, Santa Barb…
- Division by Zero
It started when I was an undergraduate. In his email he explained he had found a theory for the indeterminism in quantum mechanics. I spent 2 weeks trying to explain that dividing both sides of an equ…
- Update on the ESQG 2010
As previously mentioned, together with Greg Landsberg and Lee Smolin, I am presently organizing a workshop on Experimental Search for Quantum Gravity that will take place here at Nordita in Stockholm,…
- Reflections on the Sun
Last week I was in Great Britain (as you'll know if you follow me on Twitter). Even when you're flying long-distance Westbound a commercial plane doesn't catch up with the setting sun. Eg the flight f…
- This and That
Some bits of information that crossed my way recently:The upcoming deadline for applications to Perimeter Institute's master course, Perimeter Scholars International, is February 1st, 2010. Details ar…
- And the Winner is: Second Prize for "At the Frontier of Knowledge" in the FQXi Essay Contest
The Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi) runs an annual Essay Contest, and last year's installment asked for papers on the question: What is Ultimately Possible in Physics?Bee had submitted an essa…
- Seminar Walkthrough
I've never been much into video games. While I am stunned by the high quality of today's virtual worlds I tend to lose interest in human-created puzzles quickly. On the rare occasions I've played one…
[ more posts from backreaction.blogspot.com ]