With the conclusion of season 5 of The Big Bang Theory, we've got our reviews of the last couple of episodes up on the site now, along with links to the science-related subjects that get mentioned in the course of the geek-related comedy.
One of the weirdest facts about quantum physics is that particles are constantly springing into and out of existence all around us. Even within "empty space," which seems like it should contain no energy at all, there are virtual particle pairs that manifest for a moment before annihilating each other.
When a major blockbuster film comes out, there's no shortage of attempts among scientists to make it a "teachable moment." The new comic-based film The Avengers, however, may have more than its fair share of this ... and rightfully so. As I mentioned a while back, even I got on this bandwagon with my recent article about time travel and how it is utilized in some of the Avengers comic book plotlines.
In Physics of the Future, theoretical physicist Michio Kaku brings the knowledge he's gleaned from interviewing over 300 scientific experts in a diverse range of disciplines to explore the ways that new scientific discoveries will affect the next century of human civilization. The book is broken up in a very clear manner, exploring the near future, midcentury, and far future discoveries that will shape our world in the century to come.
Last weekend, I discussed using popular culture to present science. Yesterday, PBS's NOVA physics blog, "The Nature of Reality," published an essay from me about how science fiction influences scientists.
In that article, I discuss the ways that science fiction can inspire science, making the point that the science fiction of H.G. Wells was anticipating Einstein's relativity concepts while other scientists were thinking that science was about done with its job. (This idea was pointed out in Lawrence Krauss' book Hiding in the Mirror.)
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March was kind of a slow month for new physics book releases, but April sees things picking up again. There are five books of particular interest in the realm of science and technology this month, and I've got them covered in our April 2012 book list. The range is wide, from one about how the Earth could be destroyed (just in time for Mayan calendar fanaticism) to one about how we could save ourselves from an energy crisis and one that explains how to survive the crazy adventures of an intrepid time traveler!
My study plan in college was simple: Learn as much as I could.
Much to my mother's chagrin, this plan didn't include considering how well classes would serve me in the workforce once college was over, but rather scheduling them based on my personal interests. As much as I could, I chose classes that I thought would give me some clue for understanding an aspect of the universe that had been a mystery to me.
...Most people that I know are absolutely disgusted by politicians. No matter what a person's political affiliation, if you're an intelligent person then you want decisions to be based on a firm understanding of the reality of the situation. There may be perfectly valid disagreements about how best to address the problems within this reality, of course, but ultimately no one wants decisions to be made on a faulty understanding of reality.
...A few weeks ago, I discussed one issue with "physics cranks," as referenced on a podcast by renowned astrophysicist and science communicator Sean Carroll. His main objection was that many of the people who believe they're revolutionizing the fundamental theories of physics do not really understand the existing theories, so they can't really quantify how their theories would resolve the problems which existing theories can solve.
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This month had a bit of a lull in episodes of the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory, but there were still two great episodes leading up toward the finale. Neither of them were the most science heavy of episodes, although episode 20 did have a classically silly physics knock-knock joke.
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Updated on May 20, 2012 09:12 PM UTC. Entries are normalised to UTC time.
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