r^2 dr = Har Dee Har Har

This is on one of the chalk boards in the physics and astronomy building at UCSC:
PHYSICS JOKE OF THE WEEK:
What did one electron say to another electron?
Don’t get excited! You’ll only get yourself into a state!
Optional reply: Don’t be so negative! It’s repulsing me!
This convo [conversation] is getting too polarized!
So why did the proton dump [...]

The Flight of the Astrophysicist–Weightless Hawking Part II

It’s been quite busy lately, so I haven’t been able to update with all the interesting science stuff going around. But, I thought I’d at least update on Stephen Hawking’s successful zero-gravity flight, which happened today. Here’s a pre-flight story from New Scientist. And here’s a post-flight story from the BBC.
[Edit: I just added this [...]

Happy Birthday, Mr. Euler

Leonhard Euler would’ve been 300 years old today. Euler was responsible for a lot of the math we learned in high school, as discussed in this NPR interview. He’s also the one who came up with Euler’s Identity, which math geeks all around say is the most beautiful equation they’ve ever seen:

Even the famed physicist [...]

Feynman QED Lectures

If you want a nerdy way to pass your time, check out videos of Feynman talking about QED (quantum electrodynamics) at the University of Auckland in 1979. I’ve only seen the first lecture, but it’s quite good so far. It’s designed for the general audience, so he avoids all the intimidating math. If only all [...]

“That’s why the French and Swiss milk continue to be so good…

…because the cows just don’t care,” says Alvaro De Rujula, a theoretical physicist at CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland, where scientists are building the largest particle accelerator to date, the LHC (Large Hadron Collider). Du Rujula is referring to the fact that the LHC is being built deep underground beneath farmland. His interview is part of [...]