Physics Nobel for CCDs and fiber optics

Professor Astronomy explains how this year's Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for inventions that you'll find at every professional observatory on Earth (and many amateur observatories, too): charge-coupled devices (CCDs) and long-distance fiber optics.

It's not hyperbole to say that CCDs brought a revolution in astronomy -- great sensitivity that lets you find faint, distant galaxies; repeatability that lets you detect the slight dimming of a star as a planet passes in front; and an intrinsically digital format that made it easy to archive and share data.

Enough Said

Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the Earth yet?

NO.

(props to the wife for the linky)

How two post-docs built an A-bomb

Fascinating story in the Guardian about two physics postdocs who in 1964, designed from scratch an atomic bomb. They'd been hired by the US Government to see whether a few smart people with no expertise could take a nation nuclear. The answer: yes, in two years.

Schrödinger equation: the tattoo

Location: Denver Airport, hour-long security line.

Equation: Schrödinger's.


The gentleman looked surprised, but said OK when I stopped him and asked for a photo. There wasn't time to get the back-story....

Cuz physics gals need to laugh, too

An Oldie but Goodie: "Electron Band Structure in Germanium, My Ass."

It's an exquisitely bitter lab report I find myself quoting, in the course of my scientific investigations, on a semi-weekly basis. My favorite line is "Figure 1: check this shit out."