nanoscale views

Once you accept the idea that the simple, microscopic interactions between bits of matter can lead to the emergence of dramatic collective ...

As many of my readers know, starting in the late '90s, many clever, creative people around the world wrote cute (and sometimes very soph...

Celebrity scientist Lawrence Krauss has written an article (pdf) about whether celebrity scientists are good for society, and noting that...

Defining "a phase of matter" for a popular audience is a tricky business, with choices ranging from the overly simplistic and ther...

Sorry for the brief hiatus.  Many urgent tasks (e.g., proposal deadlines, prep for semester, grad admissions).  Suggestions for forthcoming ...

I've linked to Dustin Sandlin before.  He does a fantastic series of YouTube videos that are readily accessible by a lay audience and s...

I see that Scientific American is reorganizing its blogging efforts .  I hope it works out well for them.  Call me if you want someone to bl...

We just completed the two-day kickoff symposium of the Rice Center for Quantum Materials .  It was a good meeting, and the concluding panel...

I helped out a colleague of mine today, who was fact-checking a couple of sentences in a story that's going to come out in a large circu...

Three superconductivity-related things during the crazy end-of-semester time crunch.  First, the paper that I'd mentioned here has be...

It's hard for me to believe that over eight years (!) have passed since I wrote this .  Recently I've been thinking about this again...

Yesterday I came across this video series , put up by "EngineerGuy" Bill Hammack .   It shows a mechanical analog computer origina...

Because of the vagaries of British copyright law and their lack of the concept of "fair use", I am not allowed to use clever littl...

I was also asked: " I would like to see a post addressing how to handle a paper sent back by the editor for another round of reviews....

A commenter wrote the following:  "About PRL, I do have a concrete question. You've been around for some time, I am new in the bus...

Skyrmions are described somewhat impenetrably  here  on wikipedia, and they are rather difficult beasts to summarize briefly, but I'll g...

I haven't done this in a while.  Are there any particular subjects that you would like me to address, or concepts to explain?  It's ...

Here are some things that I wanted to share with my readership: My friend Arjendu Pattanayak (founder of a very good blog ) pointed out t...

I've talked before about how condensed matter/materials physics/engineering is so ubiquitous that it somehow fades into the background, ...

We were very fortunate last week to host Paul McEuen for our Chapman Lecture series (previous speakers here ).  NAS member, successful nove...