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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
Mr. Faraday goes wild — with atomic speculation! (1844)
Michael Faraday (1791-1867), whom I’ve talked about numerous times, has a reputation as being a bit of a theoretical lightweight, namely because he had little formal mathematical training. In spite of this, however, he had an ability to think abstractly … Continue reading
Posted in History of science, Physics
7 Comments
Levitation and diamagnetism, or: LEAVE EARNSHAW ALONE!!!
In one of my regular explorations of StumbleUpon I happened across a nice homemade demonstration of magnetic levitation on a page called spark, bang, buzz. The demonstration is adapted from a description at scitoys.com. The setup is illustrated schematically below: … Continue reading
Posted in Physics
28 Comments
Why no press on Y(4140)?
Earlier this month, I came across a healthy number of articles on the observation at Fermilab of a single top quark, produced by interactions involving the weak nuclear force. As a scientist who dabbled in particle physics in graduate school, … Continue reading
Posted in Physics
10 Comments
Michael Faraday, grand unified theorist? (1851)
At long last, I get to blog about the paper that first piqued my interest about the research of Michael Faraday! If you haven’t been following my Faraday posts, let me give a quick recap: Michael Faraday (1791-1867) was one … Continue reading
Posted in History of science, Physics
9 Comments
Faraday brings light and magnetism together (1845)
The more I read of Michael Faraday’s work, the more I am in awe of the scientist’s insights and abilities. As evidence of the remarkable intuition he had regarding the forces of nature, consider the following passage: I have long … Continue reading
Posted in History of science, Optics, Physics
14 Comments
A physics history-mystery: magnetism from light?
As I’ve noted in previous posts, one of the fun things about researching historical scientific papers is the unexpected places the investigation can take you. Often a simple search on a straightforward topic will start a chain reaction of increasingly … Continue reading
Posted in History of science, Physics
27 Comments
Measuring the ‘kick’ of a photon leaving a fiber!
In physics, there are a number of fundamental and seemingly simple questions which have remained a source of controversy for years, even decades. Last month, a paper was published by a Chinese research group describing an experiment which throws new … Continue reading
Posted in Optics, Physics
5 Comments
Faraday’s unified theory of… electricity? (1833)
This is the second in a series of posts describing the researches of the super-experimentalist Michael Faraday (1791-1867) into electricity and magnetism. In the first post of the series, I discussed his first paper on his electrical research, in which … Continue reading
Posted in History of science, Physics
7 Comments
Isaac Asimov’s How Did We Find Out About Black Holes
About a month ago, Blake over at Science After Sunclipse posted an image of some of his early kindergarten science scribblings. That got me thinking about my own early interest in science, and the sources that motivated me. While visiting … Continue reading
Posted in Physics
5 Comments
Mr. Faraday’s (most excellent) experimental researches in electricity (1831)
Michael Faraday (1791 – 1867) was a master of electricity. His researches established may important results in electromagnetic theory, including some which are now so taken for granted that Faraday’s name is unfortunately not even thought of in connection with … Continue reading
Posted in History of science, Physics
28 Comments
