Tag Archives: physics

Notes from a quantum mechanics boot camp: day 3

30 Saturday Aug 2014

Posted by in Physics, QM Workshop

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With the third and final day of the workshop done, it’s time for me to wrap up this series on Inspiring Science. While this will be my last post about the workshop, I’m sure it won’t be the last time I write about these topics. I learned a great deal in the past few days, enough to increase both my interest in and confidence about covering physics topics. Before getting to the actual science, I want to thank the organisers, sponsors, and participants for an excellent and fruitful workshop. I hope the series continues and I look forward to coming back next year! Continue reading →

Notes from a quantum mechanics boot camp: day 2

29 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by in Physics, QM Workshop

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I didn’t have the energy to write about quantum computing last night, but fortunately I can make up for it in today’s post, since that was the main subject of the day — quantum information science and computing. Again, I’ll do my best to get the main idea across, but I’m sure it’s something I’ll revisit again in the future. Continue reading →

Notes from a quantum mechanics boot camp: day 1

28 Thursday Aug 2014

Posted by in Physics, QM Workshop

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I have the good fortune of attending this year’s Nordita workshop for science writers, which is focused on quantum mechanics. It’s been a fascinating and educational experience, so I thought I should make an effort to write a post about the workshop each evening. Since I’m writing about an unfamiliar subject following a day full of lectures, these posts won’t be nearly as polished as the other stuff on Inspiring Science; I’m tired and I may have misunderstood things, so there will probably be some mistakes and clumsy explanations. On the other hand (and with that caveat), I think it’s better to share whatever understanding I’ve gained today and hope that someone will correct me where I go wrong. I’m not going to make any kind of attempt to be thorough, but simply write a bit about a couple of the things I found most interesting each day Continue reading →

The laws of biology

26 Monday Aug 2013

Posted by in Discussions

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Science is our way of trying to understand the universe, to make sense of the patterns of objects and behaviours around us and explain the regularity of the world we experience. We use several different words to characterize the ideas and explanations we come up with. A hypothesis is an informed conjecture, a speculation about world which needs to be tested, while a theory is a well-supported, coherent framework which explains some aspect of the universe. Scientific “laws” seem to fall somewhere in between; while they’re very well-supported, they tend to assert things about the world rather than offer an explanation. For example, Newton’s law of gravity enables us to predict the gravitational attraction between two objects but doesn’t explain why objects are attracted to each other. Continue reading →

No secrets by the lakeside: how water affects sound

14 Wednesday Aug 2013

Posted by in Physics

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Fishing (Photo credit: Hannele Luhtasela-El Showk)Summer in Finland can be tricky. Most people retire to their summer cottages, many of which are located by one of the country’s 190,000 lakes; the cottages provide a respite from the metropolitan hustle, a quiet interlude with space to pause and reflect. It’s easy to feel comfortably isolated, but you quickly learn to be cautious about baring your soul by the lakeside. Sitting by the water’s edge last week, my partner and I were struck by how easily we could hear our neighbours across the water. This isn’t a special property of Finland or even of Finnish lakes. It’s just that sound travels better over water and Finland has quite a lot of lakes dotted with lakeside cottages. Continue reading →

Planck looks back at the first billion, billion, billionth of a second

21 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by in Astronomy

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Artist's impression of the Planck spacecraft (Photo credit: Wikipedia)This morning, the European Space Agency (ESA) released the results from the Planck mission, a satellite designed to peer back at the earliest fraction of a second of the universe. It’s not our first glimpse of those early moments, but it’s the best look we’ve had to date. While the data from the Planck mission doesn’t overturn our understanding of the universe, it’s a treasure trove for theoretical physicists and brings some exciting questions to the fore.

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