Big Bang
There have been a number of stories like
Theory
suggests universe without Big Bang in the media.
No Big Bang? Not so fast….
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Author Archives: gmcdavid
Tall Ships in Duluth
On Saturday mia_mcdavid, carpe_noctum_93 (our foster daughter), and I drove up to Duluth to see the tall ships. The crowd was huge, but the parking was not too bad for those of us who are used to big cities. The ships were impressive. I took some pictures with my Blackberry, which you can see here.
Thinking about eBooks
I have been hesitant about eBooks because of
- DRM issues
- How would I choose among the various readers out there?
However, the sheer volume of our library means the issue is always coming up. Continue reading
Superconductivity
High-Temperature Superconductivity is something I worked on at Stanford back in 1973-75. The world has changed. Now “high-temperature” means “above the boiling point of liquid Nitrogen” (77oK/-321oF). Back then it meant “above the boiling point of liquid Hydrogen” (20oK/-423oF), and it was still an unattained goal. We had to use liquid Helium. Still, some things remain the same:
- Dimensionality matters. Back then I was working with thin films, thin enough to act in some ways like two-dimensional objects. This is still important.
- The Ginzburg-Landau macroscopic theory seems to still work. The more detailed BCS Theory goes beyond G-L to a give a microscopic description of superconductivity and is very successful at liquid Helium temperatures. However, it appears to be in trouble at higher temperatures.
Pope unfriends Mary Magdalene
Episcopal Café‘s Onion-style link to Pope’s book on Jesus ‘edited out’ women
Not just me
Distaste for Corona saves geologist from assassination
Monday Night Irish Class, July 26, 2010
Irish Class, July 26, 2010
Rang Gaeilge, 26 lá Mí na Iúil
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Fadas: áéíóúÁÉÍÓÚ
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Go Maolaí Air “May he back off”
pt. 6
Scríofa ag Wes Koster
Perils of the Amazon
beamjockey wrote about “The Worst Excuse for a Book I’ve Ever Seen.”
He compared a modern “print-on-demand” copy of a technical book with the 1912 original. OCR is clearly not ready for prime time.
The publisher
is flooding Amazon with these low quality prints and, unfortunately, many of them have the reviews associated with the original or with beter quality imprints associated with them.
Also, Jennifer Ouellette, in The Nays Have It looked at Amazon.com customer reviews of some well known science books. If you are thinking about buying a book there, don’t just count the stars. Again, you should check the reviews.
From Hilbert Space to Dilbert Space, and beyond 