nanoscale views

 Here are some outreach/popularization tidbits: Maryam Tsegaye won the 2020 Breakthrough Junior Challenge with this video explaining quant...

Here are a few items I came across in the last few days that may be of broader interest: John Preskill 's lectures for his quantum compu...

Based on conversations with my colleagues at my institution and across the US, graduate program application rates in the US seem to be up qu...

As you can always tell by the frequency of my posting, work-related activities have been dominating my schedule of late.  In addition to the...

One big selling point of solid-state quantum computing platforms is the notion of scalability.  The semiconductor industry has spent billion...

The puzzle-solving aspect of experimental physics is one reason why it can fun, but also why it can be very challenging.  In condensed matte...

 It's been a busy time, but here are a few items for news and discussion: President-Elect Biden named key members of his science team , ...

There are some cool new physics and nanoscience results out there, but after a frankly absurd week (in which lunatics stormed the US Capitol...

To start the new year, a silly anecdote ending in real science. Back when I was in grad school, around 25 years ago, I was goofing around ch...

 A few odds and ends at the close of 2020: This was not a good year, for just about anyone.  Please, let's take better care of each othe...

 In keeping with my previous posts about favorite science fiction condensed matter systems and the properties of vibranium , I think we are...

Here are a few interesting links as we look toward the end of a long year: Brian Skinner of Gravity and Levity has a long and excellent th...

In the last week or two, there have been a couple of big science stories that I think raise some interesting issues about what we consider t...

 Several items of note: Quanta Magazine remains a generally outstanding source of science articles and opinion pieces.  In this opinion col...

Many books and articles have been written about the science of cooking, and why different cooking methods work the way that they do.  (An ab...

In the previous post, I mentioned that one categorization of "soft" condensed matter is for systems where quantum mechanics is (be...

This great article by Randall Munroe from the NY Times this week brings up, in its first illustration (reproduced here), a fact that surpr...

A couple of papers caught my eye recently on the arxiv, when I wasn't preoccupied with the presidential election, the pandemic, or grant...

I know people don't read this blog for politics, but the past week has seen a couple of very unusual situations, and I think it's wo...

Arguably the greatest technical and manufacturing achievement in all of history is around us all the time, supporting directly or indirectly...