Physics

The web site of the Cornell preprint archive, arxiv.org, says it best: successful submissions to the preprint archive are a source of considerable pride (darn it, the page with the exact statement is…

Ah, the pleasure of study! I had forgotten the immense intellectual pleasure one may derive by reading a stimulating, informative book. And if half a lifetime has passed from the last time you…

The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom, by Graham FarmeloBasic Books, 2009 When Niels Bohr calls you strange, you know you're in rare company. Niels Bohr, as director of…

It is easy to marvel at Einstein's relativity theory. It is less easy to really understand relativity. At least so it seems. Understanding relativity requires abilities in predicting with confidence…

There are many super microscopes around the globe but they are not like the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). This new source has become the…

"It turns out that any optimal classical decision rule is also some Bayesian rule. In other words, even if the decision maker is not a Bayesian, he will behave as if he were!" Frederick James,…

Carl Brannen is well known to the regulars of this blog. He is an independent researcher and my favourite non-professional theorist, because he gives me the hope that brilliant minds, who were…

Do you remember the "e-e-gamma-gamma-met"  event ? I am sure you do not. It is an incredibly striking event that appeared toward the end of the Tevatron Run I in the CDF data. One event that was…

"An illustration of the confusion about the tau is provided by two editions of a popular book on particle physics by Nigel calder entitled The Key to the Universe. In the first edition Calder wrote:…

As a  first act in the new committee, I have decided to publish a small article on the recent issue with the Omega_b discovery. The Omega_b is a particle which has been seen for the first time…