December 2012

  • EBEX launched!

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    My colleagues, friends and collaborators on the EBEX project are in Antarctica this (Northern) winter preparing the telescope for launch. And today, they did it: EBEX Launch movie Just beautiful. (The video is from Asad Aboobaker, whose blog EBEX in Flight is documenting the mission from the field.) EBEX is a next-generation CMB telescope, with…

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  • Quantum debrief

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    A week ago, I finished my first time teaching our second-year course in quantum mechanics. After a bit of a taster in the first year, the class concentrates on the famous Schrödinger equation, which describes the properties of a particle under the influence of an external force. The simplest version of the equation is just…

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  • Science as metaphor

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    In further pop-culture crossover news, I was pleased to see this paragraph in John Keane’s review of Alan Ryan’s “On Politics” in this weekend’s Financial Times: Ryan sees this period [the 1940s] as the point of triumph of liberal democracy against its Fascist and Stalinist opponents. Closer attention shows this decade was instead a moment…

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  • SDSS 1416+13B

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    It’s not that often that I can find a reason to write about both astrophysics and music — my obsessions, vocations and avocations — at the same time. But the recent release of Scott Walker‘s (certainly weird, possibly wonderful) new record Bish Bosch has given me just such an excuse: Track 4 is a 21-minute…

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