Category Archives: Scicomm
A vortex in my bucket
One of the taps in my bathroom at home issues water in laminar flow – without any turbulence. Sometimes the flow from the tap to the bucket looks like it’s frozen: there are no disturbances on the water’s surface to … Continue reading
Hype from Fermilab
Where do you think the following bit of text is from? A wormhole, also known as an Einstein-Rosen bridge, is a hypothetical tunnel connecting remote points in spacetime. While wormholes are allowed by Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, wormholes have … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged Fermilab, Google Sycamore, hype, Joseph Lykken, Peter Woit, Quanta, wormhole
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Should journos pay scientists for their expertise?
I recently came across a question posed on Twitter, asking if experts whom journalists consult to write articles should be compensated for their labour, especially since, in the tweeter’s words, “it’s quite a bit of effort”. The tweeter clarified their … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Scicomm
Tagged expertise, exploitation, knowledge production, labour, public interest, science journalism, service, truth production
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Notes on covering QM
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged mathematical physics, pedagogy, quantum physics, science communication
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The identity of scientific papers
This prompt arose in response to Stuart Ritchie’s response to a suggestion in an editorial “first published last year but currently getting some attention on Twitter” – that scientists should write their scientific papers as if they were telling a … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm, Science
Tagged IMRaD structure, knowledge production, preprint papers, replication crisis, science journalism, scientific papers, scientific publishing, storytelling
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New LHC data puts ‘new physics’ lead to bed
One particle in the big zoo of subatomic particles is the B meson. It has a very short lifetime once it’s created. In rare instances it decays to three lighter particles: a kaon, a lepton and an anti-lepton. There are … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged B mesons, electrons, flavour-changing neutral current, Kaons, Large Hadron Collider, lepton-flavour universality, LHCb, muons, New Physics, Standard Model of particle physics
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Notes on the NIF nuclear fusion breakthrough
My explainer/analysis of the US nuclear fusion breakthrough was published today. Some stuff didn’t make it to the final draft for space and tone constraints; I’m publishing that below. 1. While most US government officials present at the announcement of the … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Scicomm
Tagged central hotspot ignition, climate finance, engineering gain, ITER, Lawson criterion, National Ignition Facility, nuclear fusion, Paris Agreement, Rayleigh-Taylor instability
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The strange beauty of Planck units
What does it mean to say that the speed of light is 1? We know the speed of light in the vacuum of space to be 299,792,458 m/s – or about 300,000 km/s. It’s a quantity of speed that’s very … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Scicomm
Tagged Boltzmann constant, Hagedorn temperature, Planck constant, Planck scale, Planck temperature, Planck units, quantum gravity, SI units, speed of light
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A ‘quantum consciousness’ absurdity at IIT Mandi
As you go downward, inward, smaller and smaller, you get more vast conscious experience. This is the idea in Indian knowledge systems. At the bottom of it, or the very base of it, at the source, is Brahman. My point … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm, Science
Tagged decoherence, IIT Mandi, Indian knowledge systems, Indian philosophy, Orch OR, quantum computer, quantum superposition, Roger Penrose, Science of Consciousness, Stuart Hameroff
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