Clik here to view.
Fun Science: Astronomical
I first became interested in science when my brother told me there was a black hole under his bed (this was a ploy to prevent me from snooping there– this is how nerd children fight). Once I could...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Beautiful Lab
Across the country, thousands of labs study thousands of topics. In my lab, we study nonlinear dynamics in electrochemical oscillators. The dynamics of these oscillators can be used to make math models...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fun Science: Network Theory and Graphs
If you have a set of items and you can connect or sequence them in many ways, you probably have a graph or network. Clearly if you have these objects, some connection arrangements might be preferable...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Beautiful Books: “Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie”
I first saw “Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout” in an expat bookstore in Belgium. The book is vibrant and colorful and intriguing. After I got back, the book was still...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fun Science: Small World Networks
The small-world phenomenon refers to the fact that even in a very large population, it takes relatively few connections to go from any element 1 to another random element. Amongst people, we know this...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Americans are (statistically!) Weird
Have you ever wondered how social scientists conduct their psychological experiments? They mostly use volunteer American college undergraduates. This might seem obviously flawed; can a bunch of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fun science: scale-free networks
A scale-free network is a network with self-similar structure. As you zoom in on parts of the network, the sub-network resembles the overall network. In this way, scale-free networks are the network...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fun Science: Crystals Everywhere!
I went on a trip to DC last fall. Almost accidentally I ended up in the Natural History Smithsonian Museum. Wow! Especially worthy is the section on minerals. I assume there are other museums with such...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fun Science: Why’s platinum so special?
In science, we tend only to learn about a small subset of the elements that populate our world. This is not unreasonable, since 96% of our bodies are composed of just hydrogen, water, carbon, and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Happy 50th Anniversary, Chaos
This month, the American Physics Society magazine, Physics Today, published an article about the 50th anniversary of the Lorenz model. At the link, you can read the entire article. In it, experts...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fun Science: Helium
Helium: filler of floating balloons, maker of high-pitched voices. But there are a lot of other interesting things about helium too! First, helium makes our voices high because it is less dense than...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Udvar-Házy Air & Space Museum
Did you know there are actually two Smithsonian Air and Space museum locations? There is one on the National Mall in Washington, DC, and a second in Virginia near Dulles Airport, called the Udvar-Házy...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Science in Progress
Today I proposed my PhD and passed, which means only one test remains in a few months. So hooray for me. I’ll soon finish the first draft of the novel, and I just got back from vacation. I’ll post some...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fun Science: The Element Lithium
Lithium is the third element on the periodic table, after hydrogen and helium. It is the lightest metal, and you probably use it every day. The batteries in your phones and laptops and most...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fun Science: Enzymes
An enzyme. Spirals and sheets and strands indicate different kinds of structures. (from Wikipedia) Enzymes are the catalysts of the body, helping to facilitate chemical reactions that would be very...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fun Science: Gravitational waves
Gravitational waves were first predicted in 1916 by Einstein’s general theory of relativity; today we are trying to directly observe them. A gravitational wave is a tiny oscillation in the fabric of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Science is Creative!
In the US, science is regarded as valuable, but dry and a bit stiff. As a student, it’s easy to get this impression, studying rigid facts first explored centuries ago. The math, chemistry, physics, and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Science and Cooking
I love to cook. As one might gather from this blog, I like to keep my hands busy, and cooking saves money and provides deliciousness. (Many other hobbies have more of a knack for consuming money.) I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fun Science: Vacuum and Pressure
Pressure is caused by collisions between particles. Scientists use the term “vacuum” when there are few particles, and thus few collisions. Air in our atmosphere is dense with particles; atmospheric...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Science of Snowflakes
If you’ve ever seen a photo of a snowflake up close, you know how beautiful and intricate they can be. People say “no two snowflakes are alike”–this is true, because of the way snowflakes grow. Each...
View Article
