Category Archives: Physics

Doing it for the thrill

Posted on 15/10/2010 by lilyasquith

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

Posted on 06/10/2010 by lilyasquith

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

Posted on 05/10/2010 by Jon Butterworth

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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Keep calm, carry on, but don’t keep quiet

Posted on 04/10/2010 by Jon Butterworth

See also Chapter 4.1 of Smashing Physics. I have been dealing with cuts in science since 2007. It can be draining and depressing, but I have learned at least two important lessons. The HERA collider started up for the first … Continue reading →

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