Physics tends to be highly under-represented when it comes to women, with them comprising only 13% of faculty in degree-granting institutions. There are many suggested reasons for this but one heartening sign is that physics department faculty and professional organizations have recognized that this deficit does not reflect well on us and have made concerted efforts to increase interest in physics among young girls and to encourage more women to major in the subject and to pursue it as a career. [Read more…]

When I think of the Antarctic at all, I just think of it as this huge inert unpopulated continent that is permanently covered with ice. What I had not realized is that in places the ice covering is as much as two miles thick and that the continent contains about 50% of the world’s supply of fresh water. The ice sheet is also not static but dynamic, with complex flow patterns. [Read more…]

One of the perennial problems that men face is that of back splash when using urinals. A group of physicists have tackled this problem and studied how to do it so that there is minimal splashing. Using high-speed cameras and nozzles to mimic various angles and speeds, they have found the optimum method. They have now presented their results. [Read more…]

I hate traveling by plane for many reasons, mainly because of the cramped seats, the security theater one has to go through, and so on, though the convenience of getting to one’s destination so much more quickly usually outweighs the negative elements. I have a rule of thumb that says that if traveling by car to a destination takes six hours or less, or if there is no time constraint for even longer journeys, I prefer to drive. [Read more…]

I feel that I have obtained a huge benefit from having studied physics, especially quantum physics. On the one hand, it has given me a sense of wonder and awe at how the laws of nature work to produce the universe we occupy. The theories are really quite beautiful, the experimental methods used to study them incredibly ingenious, and the implications quite profound. [Read more…]

In the Forbidden City, a city within the city of Beijing consisting of massive palaces and temples built in the 15th and 16th centuries, some of the stone slabs used in the construction weigh 100 tons or more. According to contemporary records they were quarried 70 kilometers away. [Read more…]

If someone fires a gun at you, can you dodge the bullet by jumping aside? If the target is a loved one or you are someone’s bodyguard whose job it is to protect some major figure like the US president, can you jump in front of the other person to take the bullet instead of them? [Read more…]

When wind power is spoken of in the US, it is as a source of unreliable auxiliary power that supplies a small fraction of the total energy needs. Hence I had always viewed it as a fringe source of power that did not have the long term potential of solar power as an alternative to fossil fuels. [Read more…]

The surprising discovery that the universe is not just expanding but that the rate of expansion is increasing is what led to the idea of dark energy as the cause of that acceleration. But explaining in non-mathematical terms to a lay audience why dark energy leads to an accelerating expansion is not easy and introducing the idea that dark energy creates a negative pressure does not help much either. [Read more…]