Random Thoughts

Due to the need of optimize my time, in the last couple of years my blogging has evolved to a rather monochromatic kind -physics, physics, physics. But it needs not be so: once in a while, there has…

The following entries are an exchange between myself and Helen Barratt regarding superluminal neutrinos and related topics.  I have removed them to this archive for anyone that wants to peruse…

Here's a little history, since some of my students are starting to look me up on the web.  It's also a story about how life is so weird that, if you wrote about it in a movie, the audience would…

In August of 2010, the nebula known as Ira's Ghost was photographed by the Hubble Telescope within the constellation Taurus. First discovered in 1983, it is a "reflection nebula" lit by an external…

If you are in the Denver area, I am on KOA 850 radio with Mike Rosen in about one hour - they have an online tool to listen. Edit: I finally got around and looked for the archive.  You can…

When Susan Senator asked her facebook friends if any would be interested in reading her new novel, I jumped at the chance. She had me with the title. I love gardening, and it has been my solace, my…

“This place would be in court for a hostile workplace. Because it actually fit all of the classic legal requirements for a genuinely hostile workplace to women.” A 1960s advertising agency?  No…

One good comment is worth a thousand readers.  In the past three weeks, as I've been busy with midterms, my Calliope posts have been simply brief blog-entries rather than full articles. …

False equivalence was the big deal two weeks ago, with political advocates Googling for evidence that there might be a Republican with a science Ph.D. (and then ostracizing any found, in the name of…

Watch Graham Hill; I'll wait. According to Hill, our shopping obsession has led to more credit card debt, CO2 emissions and stress. I'm pretty sure that most of us will agree that CO2 emissions is…