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Lies Your Physics Teacher Told You?

He of uncertain principles asks Which do you prefer: transverse waves, or longitudinal waves? The fact builder chimes in with a clarification of a common misconception.
Myself, certainly I’m going to go for transverse waves. Not only are all the cool waves transverse (well sort of), electromagnetic waves, gravitational waves, stadium waves, etc, but you can’t surf on a longitudinal wave.
And of course, how cool are gravitational waves? So cool they produce this mesmerizing action on a ring of particles:
Interestingly while light is often used as the quintessential example of transverse waves, (the example being give is usually that of plane waves of light) if you talk about light beams with finite diameter, longitudinal modes appear. (For example, see here) But I don’t fault my physics teachers for not teaching me this: learning physics is really just a series of less lying anyway isn’t it?

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Best Bacon Desert?

Jorge sends me a link to The Best (Bacon) Dessert Ever?: a bacon-topped blue cheese panna cotta. Uh oh, Mrs. Pontiff has competition! Luckily this creation is just down the hill from our home at the Palace Kitchen, so we’ll be able to compare and really find out if it is the best bacon desert ever.

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New CS PhD Grad? Funding Opportunity: CIFellows

Via the CCC Blog, an announcement concerning an NSF funded opportunity for new PhDs in Computer Science, CIFellows (http://cifellows.org):

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) and the Computing Research Association (CRA), with funding from the National Science Foundation, are pleased to announce an opportunity for new PhD graduates in computer science and closely related fields to obtain one-to-two year positions at host organizations including universities, industrial research laboratories, and other organizations that advance the field of computing and its positive impact on society.
The Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows) Project will fund as many as 60 such positions. Applications are due very soon: June 9, 2009. Awards are expected to be announced by July 10. Positions will commence in Autumn 2009.
Go to http://cifellows.org to apply to be a CIFellow.
Also: Go to http://cifellows.org to advertise your interest in hosting a CIFellow at your organization.
Individuals who received their PhD from a U.S. institution between May 1, 2008 and August 31, 2009 in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Science, or a closely related field are eligible to apply. Applicants must obtain commitments from between one and three prospective hosts/mentors. Hosts/mentors must not be at the same institution as the one granting the PhD. The CIFellows website provides resources for both prospective applicants and host/mentors to announce their interests and availability.
– Ed Lazowska, Chair of the Computing Community Consortium Council
– Peter Lee, Incoming Chair of the Computing Research Association

Any new grads interested in some quantum computing theory in Seattle? Shoot me a buzz.
Update: More info for the motivation for the program at Peter Lee’s blog.