The journal Nature has finally discovered physics! For a while now there have been specialized Nature journals for different disciplines. Now, starting in October 2005, they’ve discovered physics: Nature Physics. Oh and look what at the list of what they will cover: * quantum physics * atomic and molecular physics * statistical physics, thermodynamics and [...]
Ken Brown suggests the following solution to the Physical Review Letters “problem”: I think a possibl[ity] is to make it so no one can submit to PRL. Instead the editors/refs can choose to bump your paper up from PRX. Then the PRX paper would be published in full and the PRL would be a short [...]
Yes, as many will have noticed, I’ve gotten a little bit of the Einstein bug lately. Then, on the APS jobs listing the following listing appeared: Physics Patent Prosecutor Berkeley Law & Technology Group, LLC Salary: Open Location: Bellevue, Washington Type: Full Time – Experienced Physics Patent Prosecutor to join a small group of prosecutors [...]
Many have pictures of Einstein on their wall. And rightly so, for the patent clerk who sparked revolutions. Since I’m in quantum computing, I think Einstein might not be the most appropriate person to have on my wall. Indeed, to hear the historians, Einstein wouldn’t even believe in the basics of what I work on [...]
Wikipedia, the open source encyclopedia is a resource I really love. Mostly it’s just hard to avoid letting it take you to a random page and reading. Actually I think encyclopedias are one of the great self-teaching tools for young kids. I recall stories from both Borges and Feynman about devouring encyclopedias as small children. [...]
From a L.A. Times story about how people who fidget a lot are leaner: Each participant wore a special, high-tech set of underwear, which were rigged with sensors and data loggers originally designed to monitor jet fighter motion. The underwear could track most body movements. It’s great to see what some people will do all [...]
One question people spend a lot of blood, sweat, and tears thinking about is the emergence of the classical world from the quantum world. The real question all these studies must grope with is what is special about the classical world. But what if we ask the following question: what other types of worlds can [...]
Right now I’m at my office, but I’m also vacuuming my home. How am I doing this, you ask? My new Roomba – the robotic vacuum! Already I am thinking of new names for my new robotic friend. This will be needed especially when the Roomba accidentally (can a robot do someting “on accident?”) chews [...]
Recently I have been debating in my head the following question: Does the four page limit for papers in Physical Review Letters squash physics? Benefits of the four page limit: (1) brevity enforces a focused article, (2) experiemental results can often be described in four pages, (3) you can tell when a paper is submitted [...]
This opinion article in Nature (433, 179 (2005)) is a bit rambling, but still very interesting. Einstein is dead Until its next revolution, much of the glory of physics will be in engineering. It is a shame that the physicists who do so much of it keep so quiet about it. Once upon a time [...]
Writing a grant today, I was listing all of my collaborators and noticed something strange. Three of my collaborators last names start with “B”, four with “C”, two with “D” and the only other letter which is duplicated in the rest of my collaborators are two “L”‘s. Basically all my collaborators last names are scrunched [...]
The nice thing about this New York Times article about the Einstein and the World Year in Physics, is that they provide a picture of Einstein when he was rather young. Isn’t it strange how the picture of Einstein many of us have in our head–the picture many of associate withe genius–is of the older [...]
