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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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Category Archives: Physics
Making magnets speak: the Barkhausen effect
Occasionally I come across a demonstration of physics that is so simple to implement yet illustrates a phenomenon so profound that it almost takes my breath away. I learned of one such demonstration recently, which requires only a handful of … Continue reading
Posted in Physics
2 Comments
How many uses for a nuclear weapon can YOU think of?
Ah, nuclear weapons! Having grown up while the Cold War was still going strong, I can almost think about nuclear bombs with a sentimental eye — though the threat of nuclear terrorism is still a possibility, we’re much further away … Continue reading
Posted in ... the Hell?, History of science, Physics
28 Comments
Relativity: Ten minutes to Alpha Centauri?
Einstein’s special theory of relativity is arguably the most amazing physical theory ever conceived. It utterly transformed our view of the universe, completely eradicating the view that space and time are independent quantities and giving us a new unified fabric … Continue reading
Posted in Physics, Relativity
6 Comments
My 5-year blogiversary!
I almost missed it! It turns out today, August 14th, 2012, is the 5-year anniversary of the founding of this blog! I would have in fact missed my “blogiversary” entirely if Jason Goldman of The Thoughtful Animal hadn’t tweeted congratulations … Continue reading
Posted in Personal, Physics
10 Comments
What’s the difference between “transparency” and “invisibility”?
In writing my previous post on The Murderer Invisible, I started thinking again about the relationship between something being “transparent” and something being truly “invisible”. Most of us can appreciate that, under the right circumstances, a transparent object like a … Continue reading
Posted in Invisibility, Optics
8 Comments
Philip Wylie’s The Murderer Invisible
If it were a mystery novel, The Murderer Invisible would be a failure right off the bat, as the plot twist is explained right there in the title! As science fiction and horror, however, this 1931 book by Philip Wylie … Continue reading
Posted in Invisibility, Science fiction
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My own little “Higgs”-related story
The physics community is in a near frenzy today with the expectation that, tomorrow at 9 am Geneva time, researchers at the Large Hadron Collider will announce the first significant evidence that they’ve discovered the “Higgs boson”, a fundamental particle … Continue reading
Posted in Personal, Physics
7 Comments
1901 — the year the nuclear atom was “invented”!
So what does an atom look like? If you were to pull someone at random off the street and ask them to draw a picture of an atom, they would more likely than not draw something like this: Almost everybody … Continue reading
Posted in History of science, Physics
6 Comments
Pauli, “armchair physicists”, and “not even wrong”
Ah, controversy! Physics is of course not immune from it, and sometimes the participants in an argument can let anger get the better of them. An example of this began last week, when the following video clip appeared, featuring Professor … Continue reading
Posted in ... the Hell?, Physics
54 Comments
So, what is a “temporal cloak”, anyway?
I’ve been saying for a few years that optical science has entered a truly remarkable new era: instead of asking the question, “What are the physical limitations on what light can do?”, we are now asking, “How can we make … Continue reading
Posted in Invisibility, Optics
6 Comments
