Category Archives: Physics

String theory and colour-field splash

Using images and art to try and understand science can be helpful, misleading, flaky or fun. But it seems to be inescapable. So on a relaxing Saturday morning, where the fact that my daughter and I are recuperating from colds … Continue reading

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Doing it for the thrill

This week I have been trying in vain to garner an interest in frequentist confidence levels. To be honest, I’m doing it (high energy physics) for the thrill. We just got two picobarns of data in a day, which has … Continue reading

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Intellectual poverty

There’s a lot of kerfuffle at the moment about the “brain drain” – UK scientists leaving for America or Europe because they can’t get a job in the UK any more. This is undoubtedly a real effect, but perhaps doesn’t seem that relevant to the average UK tax payer. Or MP. Continue reading

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Swinging cats and levitating frogs

Congratulations to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov on winning the Nobel prize in physics – not for their frog-levitating work, but for groundbreaking studies of graphene On The Guardian.

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