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The author of Skulls in the Stars is a 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. -
Category Archives: Physics
Shocking: Michael Faraday does biology! (1839)
(This is my entry to the first “special edition” of The Giant’s Shoulders, dubbed “The Leviathan’s Shoulders”, with an emphasis on oceans and ocean life. The post is actually about a river creature, but, hey, it’s still aquatic!) I’ve spent … Continue reading
Posted in History of science, Physics
24 Comments
Wave interference: where does the energy go?
Last week was a relatively lousy one for me, but it was made up in part by getting a good question from a student on waves and interference after class. It’s really nice to get a question that indicates a … Continue reading
Posted in Optics, Physics
33 Comments
Rolling out the (optical) carpet: the Talbot effect
One of the wonderful things about having a career in science is that a deeper understanding of the science leads to a greater appreciation of its beauty. In physics, this usually requires a nontrivial amount of mathematics, but there are … Continue reading
Posted in Optics, Physics
31 Comments
A WTF scientific paper from Edinburgh, 1884
I’m still quite busy finishing off my book, and a grant proposal in the meantime, but I thought I’d share a very odd paper from the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 13 (1884), 23-24, entitled, “Extraordinary occurrence at … Continue reading
Posted in ... the Hell?, History of science, Physics
11 Comments
Announcing: Mathematical Methods for Optical Physics and Engineering!
I’ve mumbled various random things in the past about my upcoming textbook project; this week, I finally got approval from the publisher to start hyping it on the blog. (Actually, they never prohibited it, but I just got around to … Continue reading
Posted in Optics, Personal, Physics
18 Comments
To describe, or not to describe…
In a recent post, Chad at Uncertain Principles addresses an interesting criticism of one of his posts. In short, he attempted to summarize the essential features of quantum mechanics that set it apart from other, classical theories of physics. As … Continue reading
Posted in Physics
3 Comments
Mythbusters were scooped — by 130 years! (Finger in the barrel)
During my first evening in San Antonio, I sequestered myself in my hotel room to polish up my presentation. Fortunately, there was a Mythbusters marathon on the Discovery Channel at that time, so I was able to keep myself marginally … Continue reading
Posted in Entertainment, History of science, Physics
11 Comments
Lord Kelvin vs. the Aether! (1901)
The more I study the history of aether physics, the more I feel that modern physicists underappreciate both the huge influence the theory had on the development of physics and how it indirectly spurred many positive scientific discoveries, even though … Continue reading
Posted in History of science, Physics
14 Comments
Lord Rayleigh’s comments on invisibility (1884)
Found it! I pointed out in my previous invisibility post that R.W. Wood attributes an early discussion of invisibility to Lord Rayleigh in his Encyclopædia Britannica article on optics; however, I couldn’t find the quote after browsing Rayleigh’s articles and … Continue reading
Posted in History of science, Invisibility
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The first paper on invisibility? (1902)
When discussing the history of invisibility physics, I typically cite Ehrenfest’s 1910 paper on radiationless motions as the first publication dedicated to the subject. Ehrenfest’s paper, which attempts to explain how electrons could oscillate in a classical atom without radiating, … Continue reading
Posted in Invisibility, Optics
9 Comments
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