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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
Sound as a fire extinguisher?
A friend of mine forwarded me a link (h/t “JakeRyker”) about extinguishing fire with sound waves that appeared in Scientific American. As noted in the article, it has been known since experiments by John Tyndall in 1857 that flames could … Continue reading
Posted in Physics, Science news
2 Comments
Some random tips on scientific public speaking
I’m currently in San Jose, at Photonics West, the biggest optics meeting of the SPIE (Society of Photographic Instrumentation Engineers, originally.) I’m only here briefly, and pretty burned out on meetings for the moment. I did see some nice talks … Continue reading
Posted in Optics, Physics
4 Comments
Two nice books on movie physics!
One of the nice Christmas gift surprises this past year was a pair of books from my girlfriend’s sister! (Thanks!) Both books deal with the physics of Hollywood movies, though from slightly different points of view: Don’t Try This At … Continue reading
Posted in Entertainment, Physics
1 Comment
A LaTeX how-to (for windows)
There was a nice post on Good Math, Bad Math about Donald Knuth’s classic scientific typesetting software, TeX. In the comments section, a number of people asked about how to learn to use the software. I thought I’d write a … Continue reading
A Brief Field Guide to Scientific Crackpots
Science and technology have progressed rapidly over the past fifty years, and access to this knowledge and opposing viewpoints has grown rapidly as well, thanks to the internet. Unfortunately, not all of these opposing viewpoints are reasonable, and many come … Continue reading
Relativity Denialists: Like the Heads of the Hydra…
Now I know how Hercules must have felt. Like the mythical hydra, you slap down one relativity denialist, and two more pop up in his place. In my case, one appeared as a comment on my blog (filtered as spam … Continue reading
Mythbusters missed a few!
I just finished watching the new episode of Mythbusters, in which they investigate a famous scene from the movie Point Break: Patrick Swayze leaps from a plane at 4000 feet, and Keanu Reeves hems and haws for fifteen seconds before … Continue reading
Relativity Denialist: A perfect example of “Not even wrong” (though he’s actually wrong, too) Part II
Halfway through writing my previous post on Mr. Relativity Denier I realized there was way too much stuff to criticize in a single blog post. I had to meet a real scientist for dinner, so I took a break and … Continue reading
Relativity Denialist: A perfect example of “Not even wrong” (though he’s actually wrong, too)
Note: Wow, this post has gotten a lot of traffic! I feel duty-bound to note, though, that mine is not the only analysis of this relativity crackpot: Blake Stacey at Science After Sunclipse has been compiling a list of some … Continue reading
Yes, Virginia, the universe really does revolve around the Earth (not)
After you’ve read some of the science blogs for long enough, you start to think that there isn’t any amount of crackpottery that can surprise you. For instance, reading Good Math, Bad Math will expose you to an endless amount … Continue reading
