#physics today

[aphroditeslover11]

The cover of ‘Physics Today’ magazine, featuring a picture of Oppie’s iconic hat. I’m fairly sure that this magazine referred to the inventors of the atomic bomb as “modern prometheans”, a pretty good foreshadowing of what was yet to come in his life and I’m guessing where the title of the biography came from. The phrase was used a long time before he was chained to his proverbial rock.

[bisexual-bifurcations]

Two of the top five stories addressed the personal side of pursuing a career in the physical sciences. - Andrew Grant

Physics Today’s most read stories of 2017:

A paper on field theory delivers a wake-up call to academics. Published online 3 August 2017.

A look inside Feynman’s calculus notebook. Published online 11 May 2017.

The image of scientists in The Big Bang Theory. January 2017 issue, page 40.

The secret of the Soviet hydrogen bomb. April 2017 issue, page 40.

It’s time for physicists to talk about mental health. Published online 31 May 2017.

Commentary: How to teach me physics. March 2017, page 10.

Q&A: Richard Muller on why the flow of time is not an illusion. Published online 10 February 2017.

An easy-to-build desktop muon detector. Published online 14 June 2017.

In referees we trust?February 2017 issue, page 44.

The laws of life. March 2017 issue, page 42.

[pheministphysicists]

Many leading academic physics departments have no underrepresented-minority faculty members. My own department at the University of Washington has never had an African American tenure-track faculty member. That state of affairs is taken for granted, but it should be regarded as shameful.

[oppenheimerblog]

In May 1948, Oppenheimer's brown porkpie hat (size 6 and 7/8, according to The New York Times) was pictured on the cover of Physics Today.

Source

[averycanadianfilm]

The history of physics is a messy business.

Ryan Dahn

[mocharoll]

"How to Spot a Physicist”

Your readers may be interested to hear that a simple way has been suggested to instantly recognising and identifying physicists. The intriguing information came to me as a result of my inquiry into the identification crisis that exists in the library profession.

From what I have learned, the physics community doesn’t seem to suffer from such a crisis, for physicists are easily identified (particularly at festive occasions) by merely noting what footwear they wear and what they drink.

A passion for wearing Hush Puppies and an undeniable and demonstrable fondness for beer appear to be the unique combination that sets them apart. The source of information is reputable, for the person who did the research has been an avid and avowed longtime physicist-watcher. As a non-physicist, I am totally unequipped and unqualified to evaluate the validity of this revelation, but after some thought it seemed quite plausible and to make good sense. Hush Puppies would of course come in handy when sneaking up on leptons, hadrons and those other miniscule particles physicists are forever chasing, and the beer (if consumed in carefully administered amounts, would surely help in conjuring up those theories and hypotheses the rest of us admire but don’t understand.

I share this information with the physics community and other physicist-watchers in the hope that further research may ascertain the validity of this fascinating hypothesis.

- Alfred J. Hodina, Sciences‐Engineering Library, University of California, Santa Barbara, California

Physics Today 35, 5, 122 (1982)

[meteorologistaustenlonek]

"Maintaining the “alternative fact” that science and religion, and in particular Christianity, are in conflict is hurting science. "

“Driving an unhistorical and unrealistic wedge between science and religion has got to stop. It leads, in part, to the optionalism that we see in some public and political attitudes toward science, from climate change to vaccination. It damages the educational experience of our children, and it impoverishes our understanding of our own science’s historical context. Human beings live not only in a physical world but within historical narratives that give us values, purpose, and identity. Science sits on the branches and draws from the sap of many of those stories whose roots are anchored in the great themes of creation, redemption, and renewal that course through our religious traditions and endow us with humanity. @PhysicsToday 

[oberlinsciencelibrary]

This Week’s Journals: always a good place to stop, browse, and learn about new developments in science, technology, medicine, and natural history.

We maintain subscriptions to a small collection of journals in print, still - imagine that! - for journals that reflect a broad view of a discipline in the Oberlin College science curriculum.  The display of this week’s journals is typical, including at least one core journal for most of the departments in the Science Center.  The April issue of Physics Today is interesting, as always, in that there are interdisciplinary articles that appeal to a wide audience (including the cover story: “From sound to meaning,” by Emily B. Myers).  Find related books on this topic in OBIS, such as: 

Auditory Science: Making Sense of Sound, by Jan Schnupp, Israel Nelken, and Andrew King.  MIT Press, 2012.

Find even more with a search on the subject heading Auditory perception.  Stop in and see all of the journals on display!  Something will surely pique your curiosity.