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The author of Skulls in the Stars is an associate professor of physics, specializing in optical science, at UNC Charlotte. The blog covers topics in physics and optics, the history of science, classic pulp fantasy and horror fiction, and the surprising intersections between these areas. -
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Monthly Archives: July 2009
The Giant’s Shoulders #13: A day at the fair!
Welcome to the 13th edition of The Giant’s Shoulders, the history of science blog carnival! This carnival marks the one year anniversary since its inception, so I thought I’d take us somewhere special and historical — the fair! Not just … Continue reading
Posted in General science, History of science
16 Comments
That’s roughly a ’2′ with 16 zeros after it…
Via Huffington Post, we get the following bit of banking absurdity: A New Hampshire man says he swiped his debit card at a gas station to buy a pack of cigarettes and was charged over 23 quadrillion dollars. Josh Muszynski … Continue reading
Posted in ... the Hell?
3 Comments
900th skydive milestone!
Just a short note: yesterday I made three skydives, the third of which was my 900th! Up until the 1000th jump, skydivers tend to treat every 100th jump as a personal milestone. Due to work, I’ve been jumping quite irregularly, … Continue reading
Posted in Personal, Sports
3 Comments
Lord Rayleigh vs. the Aether! (1902)
(Note: This is an attempt to get myself rolling on my long-ignored series of posts explaining Einstein’s theories of relativity. It’s also a really cool experiment in the history of science.) One of the most fascinating aspects of 19th century … Continue reading
Posted in History of science, Optics, Relativity
8 Comments
Fletcher Pratt’s The Well of the Unicorn
Though I’m quite well read these days with respect to pulp fiction of the early 1900s, I’m much less familiar with those genres which followed, namely science fiction and fantasy. Occasionally, however, my literary wanderings cross my path with something … Continue reading
Posted in Fantasy fiction
3 Comments
Hollywood: Now officially out of ideas
Okay, now I think we can make this official: Hollywood is completely out of novel ideas. We started to suspect that this was the case when they started remaking very old classics such as King Kong, but at least there … Continue reading
Posted in ... the Hell?, Entertainment
16 Comments
Some musings on negative refraction
For a part of this past week I was at a workshop in California, and a lot of excellent theoretical and experimental researchers of metamaterials were present. One of the points stressed by many of them is the difference between … Continue reading
Posted in Optics
8 Comments
12 days until The Giant’s Shoulders #13!
This July 4th, if you’re celebrating the history of the United States, why not celebrate some history of science as well? There’s 12 days left until the deadline for The Giant’s Shoulders #13, which is the first anniversary edition of … Continue reading
Posted in General science, Science news
2 Comments
“Depression” isn’t just feeling bad
There’s been a healthy amount of discussion on the science blogs over the past few days about clinical depression, spurred on in large part by questions from aspiring academics concerning the best way to address the impact of their illness … Continue reading
Posted in Health
5 Comments
