What is the multiverse?
If you’ve ever gazed up at the stars, knowing that you are only seeing a tiny fraction of our galaxy, and then realized the Milky… The post What is the…
Physics
Paradigm Shift: A Revolution of the Mind
Below is a high level talk by a theoretical physicist, which I will critique here. Yes, that is audacious, but not unfitting. Here are my thoughts. Really wonderful and lucid…
The Physics Travel Guide
Sometimes learning stuff can be difficult due to obscure terms and references to concepts that you might not know. Physics is filled with terms and concepts that are intimidating to…
Thinking about my dad on the 100th anniversary of his birth and Canada’s need for public post-secondary education
PHOTOS: My dad, John L. Climenhaga, as a University of Saskatchewan undergraduate. Below: My father, in the foreground, circa 1917, about the time the asteroid now named Climenhaga in his…
The Big Bang Theory is ruining science
When The Big Bang Theory first premiered, I watched it with a lot of hope. It had science script checkers and sought to bring the nerdy culture of physics into…
Saturday At The Movies
This beautiful video is set to the words theoretical physicist Richard Feynman (1918 – 1988). * * The Sagan Series is an educational project working in the hopes of promoting…
What do you look for (part two)?
Having expounded in my previous post what kind of person I look for, when serving on the search committee for a tenure-track hire, now it is time to list the…
What do you look for (part one) ?
I am a faculty member in a university physics department, who finds himself periodically involved in faculty searches and hires. How do I evaluate the curriculum vitae of an applicant…
Dan’s Estimation of the Age of the Universe
As a follow up to my post on the theory of relativity’s implications on the age of the universe and the nature of reality, I am pointing out something that…
Dan’s Estimation of the Age of the Universe
As a follow up to my post on the theory of relativity’s implications on the age of the universe and the nature of reality, I am pointing out something that…
Binomial distributions and multiple choice tests
Readers of my blog know that I generally regard multiple choice tests (MCTs) as an adequate tool to assess student knowledge of, and proficiency with, a given set of topics.…
Physicists Open Up
Results from publically-funded research often ends up in places that the average person can’t access the findings because scientific (and other) journals where results are printed cost an arm and…
Why read when you can watch and listen?
A bunch of shameless self promotion. Back in August I was invited to join Don McLenaghen on Radio Freethinker, the skeptical podcast of CiTR radio (the UBC radio station). Ethan…
In praise of failure
“In 2004, Kim and Chan (KC) carried out torsional oscillator (TO) measurements of solid helium confined in porous Vycor glass and found an abrupt drop in the resonant period below…
On confirmation bias
Doug Natelson has done an outstanding job at debunking a ridiculous charge of confirmation bias allegedly affecting a recent study of climate change. Such a charge is put forth in…
Online notes
Why do students who take courses with me (but colleagues tell me of similar experiences) routinely insist that I scan and post online my very own notes, the hard-to-read, disorganized…
The God particle, and what it has to do with God
Oh how I wish the recently demonstrated Higgs Boson, which bestows mass on particles, had never acquired the moniker the ‘God Particle’. I suppose there is one benefit: it increases…
Letter from the trenches
I have received a letter from a student who obtained his doctoral degree with me a few years ago, and after one postdoctoral appointment decided that their heart was really…